BB09
Something strange happened to me the other day. Kyle, Kristen, and I biked down to 13th & Spruce to see our friend, ‘the leprechaun’ (Kristen #2) run the Bolder Boulder. Sure enough Kristen #2 started the race an hour late but we decided to wait around for some serious people watching. As I was standing on the curb looking for costumes to take photos of – out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of motion that I thought nothing of.
As I turned to my right a few seconds later to follow some costumed creature down the street, I realized what that blur had been. An older man had collapsed while running – he was perhaps 15 feet from me, but hundreds of runners separated us. Bystanders on the other side of the street had already rushed to the man’s side. I was one week off of my CPR refresher course and wondering if the lady that was pumping his chest was doing it correctly. Hell, had she even checked to see if the man was breathing? It was pretty unclear with hoards of runners traveling between us. In fact the whole scene was pretty chaotic as several people stopped to try to help. There were spurts of what resembled CPR and other spurts that just seemed like pure confusion. The band stopped perhaps two minutes after the collapse and called for help on their loudspeakers. A bike medic rolled up and took control one minute later and an ambulance a minute after that. The race volunteers actually blocked the runners bringing them to a standstill (which I’m sure caught some runners off guard) as the ambulance screamed to our location.
Just before the ambulance arrived, Kristen #2 came running by in her costume oblivious to the events just across the street. She was having so much fun, laughing and tossing out reeses pieces to anyone and everyone, screaming about a leprechaun that was chasing her (a guy named Chris). The situation was startling and I was held aback by the stark dichotomy of life that I was witnessing. Just before me was my vibrant young friend full of laughter and life and a few feet beyond her a man was struggling to hold onto his life.
Eventually, while the medics were still performing CPR, they loaded the man in the ambulance, blocked the race again, and sent him to the hospital just down the road. The race went on, but the fun was over for us. We hopped back on our bikes – still thunderstruck by the events that had just transpired.
Following are a few pictures I snapped prior to the debacle, the rest are located over here.
The scene:
Filed by ryanroth at May 27th, 2009 under Life