The Third Time I Performed CPR
Helen Antoniak
CPR – Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation – is the action taken in an emergency situation to restore the heartbeat and breathing of a fellow human being. I have taken CPR training too many times to count. I have performed CPR three times.
The first time was in June of 1967. I had driven with my parents from San Diego to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We were there to celebrate “June Week.” The week’s activities culminate with graduation at which the members of senior class of midshipmen are commissioned. My brother, Peter, was about to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a Naval Officer.
We arrived Friday night and settled in to our rented cottage. Early Saturday morning my father began experiencing severe chest pains and shortness of breath. I immediately began CPR while my mom called for an ambulance. I accompanied my father in the ambulance as it raced to the Naval Academy Infirmary. After further life-saving efforts were performed, the emergency room doctor pronounced my father dead.
I had not saved my father from death.
* * *
I performed CPR again twenty years later in September, 1987. I was the founder, president and dean of my own university. It was a licensed, family, home daycare I called “The Baby University.” I specialized in caring for babies from newborns until they walked. When the babies began to walk, they graduated, they got their “walking papers.”
That fateful afternoon, I went upstairs to find out why I had not heard baby Kevin awaken from his nap. I could not believe how he looked. I scooped up his little lifeless body. I called 911. I frantically performed CPR.
If I could have brought that baby back to life, I would have. Kevin would have been three months old the next day. “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome” is the diagnosis given when an otherwise healthy baby inexplicably dies in his sleep.
I was heartbroken about Kevin. That was the last day I cared for infants professionally.
* * *
After I closed The Baby University, since I have a master’s degree in social work, I found employment with the County of San Diego. The name of the department was Health and Human Services, and my job designation was “Children’s Protective Services Worker.”
Government bureaucracies are notorious for requiring paperwork, and social workers are responsible for completing the largest amount of it. After a decade of filling out forms by hand, I
was expected to cross the ‘digital divide.’ The County initiated a computerized record-keeping program called the “Child Welfare Services Case Management System.”
Even though the trainers tried to gently ease us into a new, computerized way of doing things, I was extremely stressed. Until that historic transition, I had never even touched a computer. I had used many three ring binders in my life so having the computer training presented to me in a three ring binder was helpful.
In an effort to calm my anxiety and master technological advancement, I created my own personal ‘walking tutorial.’ Before going into the office each morning, I would remove a page from the training manual, walk along the shore of Mission Bay and try to absorb the mystifying electronic procedures. I still remember how many steps were required where I was supposed to use the mouse and keyboard to select one thing and then click on another.
On a sunny morning in late October, I looked up from the page I was studying and realized I was alone … except for a man lying face-down approximately twenty feet ahead of me. I thought he might be taking a nap, but this seemed like a strange spot to choose. I would have been tremendously relieved if he was just sleeping but I had to make sure.
“Sir, are you alright?” There was no response to my voice or the touch of my hand on his shoulder.
I knelt down and rolled the man onto his back. He appeared to have fallen on his face. I listened for his breathing and felt for his pulse. I could detect neither. There was no way for me to know how long he had been lying there but his skin felt warm to my touch. I immediately began CPR. Soon a man approached me and I asked him if he knew CPR and he did not so I then asked him to get help.
After about ten minutes, a park employee arrived. He took over the chest compressions; I concentrated on filling the man’s lungs with air. Paramedics arrived and sprang into action administering further lifesaving efforts with a defibrillator and an IV. They placed the man in their ambulance to transport him to a hospital. I chose to ride along because I felt it was important for the emergency room staff to know the circumstances in which I found the man.
At the hospital, I was escorted to a waiting room. After a few minutes, the paramedics came in and said I had done everything right. After a while, a doctor came in and also assured me that I had performed CPR correctly. The doctor then said that we had been unable to save the man.
Once more my life-saving efforts had failed, but this time it was a stranger. My mind would not rest. Who was this man? I wanted to know the name of the person I had tried to save.
Soon, a nurse came in and handed me a small piece of paper. I gazed with amazement at the letters printed on it. The man’s name was “JESUS.” I had tried to save Jesus. As a Christian, no name is more meaningful to me. I gave Jesus CPR. I bridged the gap between life and death with Jesus.
Because of the third time I performed CPR, I look at life and death differently. That earthly Jesus had made his transition into the arms of the heavenly Jesus for whom he had been named. I realize it was a gift from God to be present with my father and baby Kevin when their souls made their journeys to Jesus.
I know that someday I, too, will die. I do not know when, where, or how I will die. I may be alone; I may be surrounded by loved ones, or, perhaps, someone will be performing CPR on me. It does not really matter what the circumstances of my death will be because I will be making my transition into the heavenly arms of Jesus.