I Saved a Mans Life or Did I

I am listening to music for my Soul.  I write to this music all the time, it soothes me.  It takes me to places where I can either run and hide in a fantasy, or sit and write about something that has been on my mind, waiting, wanting to be released.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaoaZiTPiik

There are no words to this music, no prescribed direction, no one telling me about heartbreak or happiness, no sweet words or melodic voices whispering their words in my ears.  It is just music. Sometimes its quiet, sometimes it's crescendo sneaks up on you, sometimes it is just light, it is, the music to which I write my life.

I can listen to the same song over and over and each time I go somewhere different with it.  Like today. I find myself wanting to cry, I am feeling lost, I am feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities of life, I want to curl into a ball and cry a mountain of tears, yet as I sit here writing this to you, none fall.

My Dad is dying, my weight is stagnant, my father-in-law is ill, my ankles are still swelling.  I am hungry all the time, but I don't want to eat.  I know I should be exercising, but instead I sit here writing.  I have a tonne of washing to do and about 6 hours of ironing, but, for now, it can all wait.

I saved mans life a few days ago, literally.  I was the first on the scene of an accident between a push bike and a car.  Naturally the guy on the bike came off second best.  I actually think I was out of the car before the guy hit the road after being flung in the air.  I heard and saw it all happen in front of me.  I reacted, I didn't think, all I knew was, that the rider was going to be hurt and would need help.

We were sitting at a set of traffic lights at a cross intersection, we had a red light.  There was a car turning into the street we were on, but she turned in front of a guy on a push bike.  I heard the guy say "Oh Shit", I heard his bike brakes activate, I heard him try to gear down and I both heard and saw him hit the car, fly into the air and slide down the back of the car all in a matter of seconds.

Before I even knew what I was doing, my seat belt was undone, I was getting out of the car as I simultaneously checked the traffic to make sure I could get to the rider without being run over by a car myself and I ran to him.  I yelled out to him "don't move, don't move, stay still, I'm coming" as I moved to kneel by his side.  As I approached him I could see no obvious injuries on the side I was approaching him from, but as I moved to the side facing away from my direction, I was faced with his right arm.  It was almost severed off, I saw his artery pumping away his life's fluid and his arm dangling, literally by a piece that was only about 2 inchs/5cm of skin.  He tried to move his arm, his shoulder moved but his arm didn't.  With that movement came a spurt of blood.  He had cut the artery and his blood was pumping out with every heartbeat, which you can imagine, was pretty rapid.

Talking to him calmly, I started to ask him generic questions, as I knelt down and clamped my thumbs onto his arm, just above the cut where I could see his artery and my fingers went to the back of his arm pulling it toward me to effectively holding his arm together.  I yelled out to someone to get me something to wrap around his arm and someone handed me a scarf. While I was keeping the pressure on his vein with one hand, I wrapped the scarf around his arm, swapping one hand for the other, the whole time keeping the pressure on his arm.  Then I held on for dear life.  They tried to take off his backpack, but I said, no leave it, it is acting as a tourniquet for me, and I held on.  People asked me did I want them to take over.  I shook my head, said no, I'm good and I held on.

The Police were on the scene pretty quickly for all the good they were worth, trying to get statements from everyone that saw the accident happen.  The poor girl who hit the rider was hysterical, but no-one bothered about her. Everyone just crowded around "Andrew".  The ambulance arrived and took over so I was left to go on my merry way, with Andrew's blood on my hands.  I didn't have any water to wash them, the police weren't forth coming with anything to help me either.  Once the ambulance man got there, I was redundant and no longer needed, a hindrance it would seem, to them continuing to save Andrew's life.   And that's okay.

So I left the scene with no care and went home and on with my life. Until I tried to go to sleep that night.  Then all the questions came flooding into my head...... Was the scarf I used going to cause an infection, will he lose his arm, did he live, why didn't I use Steve's belt as a better tourniquet, why didn't I raise his arm to lessen the blood flow, Why were my hands so sore, why didn't I stay until he was placed into the ambulance, why didn't I get more of his name to follow up to see if he was okay, do I want to know if he is okay, do I want to see if there was anything I had done, that could have caused him more injury, why didn't I insist that the police take my name and number OMG did I do the right thing, did I hold his arm tight enough, did I hold it in the right place, did I even want to know the answer to any of these questions, OMG did I do the right thing?

These questions have been running around and around in my head and I just want them to stop.  Even though I know I did everything I could, I did what I did and when the ambulance came, Andrew was conscious, breathing and most importantly, alive.  I can't stop the questions, the wondering if I did anything wrong, Did I do anything that has caused him to suffer more when my intentions were to only help.  Why can't I get these questions to stop.

I still don't know if I am even asking the write questions and when I feel like this, when I have the need to work out what is in my mind I write.  I never know if it is going to be a poem, or a blog or a short story.  I never know what is going to happen.  But the irony between this, is that I can accept that I don't know the answers and keep on going everyday without a worry.  I don't even think on the fact that I never know what is going to happen from one day to the next.

I don't get crippled by fear and I don't second guess everything I do, or say, or do, or, say.  So why was I questioning myself now?  I guess maybe, it is because what was on my mind wasn't about me. It was about Andrew.  The guy who was riding his bike on a Thursday afternoon home from work who didn't get there at the time he originally anticipated, but hopefully did or will, still get there.

Feeling like I needed to do something to stop the questions, I came to my computer to put the music for my soul on, I sat with my eyes closed, waiting to see what would come out and started to type, unconsciously ready to type whatever came to mind first. Would it be about me, or would it be about Dad or would it be the start of a new story that has been playing around in the background of my mind.

As you can now see, this is what happened when I listened too my music for my soul.