Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Back from the brink

(UPDATE, Jan. 22, 2014: This post was originally a followup to a post describing how, while visiting with friends on the evening of June 15, 2012, I passed out, banged my head, woke up in an ambulance, and spent a couple of days in a hospital.

That original post was titled, "How to make yourself pass out, in four easy steps." Over time, it became the most popular post on this blog - and if you check the list to your right, it may still be. After I realized that it was popular because people were looking for ways to make themselves pass out, I rewrote that post to point out that when you pass out, you could die.)

This is what I started to say last time...

What I remember from June 15 is blowing out a candle, starting to stand up, then...being loaded into an ambulance.

I missed some dramatic stuff. I won't try to tell the story, because I would mess it up.

I'll only say this: I stopped breathing for a while. My friend and brother in Christ Gene Tibbs, whose house is where this happened, laid hands on me and yelled the only prayer he could think of: "In the name of Jesus!" I started breathing again.

And a neighbor lady who was visiting and who saw the whole thing, and whom her boyfriend has described as an atheist, left to go home, and said as she went, "God be with you."

I am thinking more and more about the fact that I stopped breathing. I just read that measurable brain activity stops after 20 to 40 seconds of not breathing.

I don't want to make more of this event than it was. But I dare not make less of it, either. I stopped breathing, and it could have been forever. I could have been gone.

I could have been gone.

1 comment:

MyNameIsGTO@gmail.com said...

I wasn't aware of the "stopped breathing" aspect of your fall. Had to be real scary for everyone. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm glad you're okay!