The Monday That Changed My Life….
Hi Friends,
I would like to share something very important with all of you my
runner friends.
I had recently gone to attend The South Asian convention of our
company at Pattaya, Thailand. I was there from 30th April till 6th
May. Since I could not run the whole
week, my colleague Nick from China and I decided to go for a long run on 5th
May which was a Monday. A Monday I will never forget and which has impacted my
life and guided me to the path I want to take going forward.
Nick is a good runner and runs 42 in under 4 hours and fit by any
fitness standard. Nick had already
finished his breakfast and was waiting for me at the lobby when I arrived. We
met at 5.45 am. After a little bit of
stretching we both hit the road. It was more of a chit chat run, we both were
enjoying our pace and were sharing our experiences while running. My Garmin showed 9.3 km and I told nick that we
will make a U turn when we reach 10km. Nick told me that he wanted to take a
break and have water and urged me to go ahead and complete my 10 km mark . I
came running back after the 10k turn and saw Nick walking so I joined him, I
asked him if he was ok and he told me he was fine. We were walking and talking
for some distance and I told him that we would start running again whenever he was
ready. We had another 4 to 5 km to return back to our hotel.
After walking for 5 min or so we started running again. While we were
running Nick was telling me about his work in China, how he is used to work
late hours, sometime he doesn't get much time for running etc. We had almost reached
the 12 km mark when he suddenly said “wait!”
and FELL DOWN , before I could realise what was happening and tried to get a hold
of him he fell flat on the ground. I was shocked by what had happened and tried
to do whatever came to my mind first. I made him sit and splashed water on his
face and kept saying “NICK?..NICKK??..open
your eyes, please talk to me..NICK?..NICK??..
are you Ok??, can you hear me?? NICK..NICKK!!”. This sounded far even to my own ears and was
not aware if any of my words were reaching him at all.
His eyes were closed and he was breathing very hard. He started making
some noise with his mouth wide open, his hands and legs became stiff, people
who gathered around were trying to help me as much as possible to revive him.
Somebody put a spoon in his mouth assuming he was having fits. Some of them
were applying balm on his neck and making him sniff it. I could see people
around were very concerned and very helpful. When I checked his pulse, it was
beating frantically, his hands and legs were getting stiffer and yellowish in
colour and he was gasping for breath.
After a while the people around and me took turns and tried CPR and
mouth to mouth respiration to revive him, simultaneously when I was doing this
I was asking people to call for transport or Ambulance to take him to the
hospital.
People around were doing the best they could, after all it was a life
in front of us which was trying to stay alive. I could see some people on the
road who were controlling the traffic and with their wireless were calling out
for help in Thai language. The Ambulance eventually arrived and we were on our
way to the hospital. He was taken straight to the ICU and was given CPR.
I heaved a sigh of relief when he was finally in the hands of the
medics because even though all of us did our best they were the professionals
who would keep him alive. The shock was slowly leaving me and realisation of
what happened and could have happened hit me. I realised my Garmin was still on
so I switched it off. It seemed like a lifetime from the time Nick fell on the
road to the time I handed him over but my Garmin reading said 21 minutes. He started breathing partially after 30
minutes or so and they shifted him to another hospital to check his Cardio. The
results showed that he had one blockage in his chest and out of three tumours
one burst in his stomach and there was internal bleeding too.
I have been keeping in touch with his folks up on his progress and
alas last week I have got to know that he has had multiple organ failure and they
have given him a few days to live.
I did my best, I gave it my 100% but it was beyond my
hands to save him.
This incident really shook me at the same time I become a strong
person. These are the following things I assessed must have gone wrong with
Nick even though he was a fit runner.
1.
I think he did not do his whole body check-up
regularly, if he would have done his body check-up he would have known about
blockage and tumors and also he would have taken care about his blood pressure
too.
2.
Too much of work in the previous week stressed him
out maybe he didn't have proper sleep too. His blood pressure was high, but he
used to think that if he runs he feels nice.
3.
When he stopped at 9.3 km he must have got the
indication but never disclosed it to me. That’s the blunder all runners do,
because of many reasons runners
hesitation to disclose to the other runner that they are feeling tired or they
are feeling uneasiness.
If one don’t feel comfortable to keep up with
the runner who run along with you or if one feel any kind of uneasiness, please
reduce the speed or walk for some time, if not that movement might be your last movement of your life.
I am sorry to be very blunt. If you have done routine medical check-up then
fine carry on.
I have learned the
following things from this incident:
1.
In case of an emergency like this immediately look for some transport
to move the person to the nearest hospital, and on the way to hospital keep
doing the CPR till you reach the hospital. Please consult the doctor for
details. Http: //depts.washington.edu/learncpr/index. html
2.
Always carry
Emergency contact number and blood group details when you are running.
3.
Please learn personally how to do CPR, you can save somebodies life
because of this.
4.
Its normal tendency, if you are doing any sort
of exercise or if you are a runner, people say that you run so much you can eat anything, you will easily burn it
out. I feel it’s a wrong perception. I
was suffering with high cholesterol problem till last 6 months, I have been
running since almost 10 years now. Doctor told me that running or any physical
exercise won’t reduce cholesterol. Now my cholesterol is normal because of my
diet.
5.
Each person’s body type is different, so one
should learn to listen to their body.
Outside you may looking very fit and unless you
do your medical you won’t know what is store for you inside your body.
I have
decided to make “Healthy Running” my mission, I don’t want any other runner to die
because he is unaware of his health issues or neglecting his health. It is my
personal agenda to create this awareness and have asked my doctor friends who
are runners to join this crusade to spread awareness. I urge you to do your bit to save a runner
friend.
Nick is no
more but for me he lives on. Happy
Running Guys!
This was
clicked on that Monday Morning before the run.
