Live while you are still breathing!

What I experienced this morning was something that I had never experienced before, something that left me in a completely different state of mind for few hours after it happened, something that made me wonder a lot if things about life itself and something that came as a big lesson for me myself…what I experienced this morning was death of a middle aged man within a matter of minutes right in front of my own eyes!

I boarded a train last night to travel back to Lucknow from New Delhi, and I was glad to have a side upper berth to myself with no interference's to face from the people sitting on the lower berths. I moved up and comfortably sat chit chatting on the phone and messaging my friends till the train moved. Within that half an hour the other people on the berth in front of me were have little conversations amongst themselves and cracking small little jokes about the weather, about electricity in the city and so on and so forth. After everyone settled I requested someone from the lower berth to just switch off the light right above my head to which this middle aged man responded very courteously and got up to figure out the switch and turned it off. Today morning when we were arriving at our destination people started getting up and packing their things, I looked at the time it was seven and since I was still sleepy and did not have much luggage to pack, I closed my eyes again. In a fraction of second I saw a lady screaming “Pandit” loudly again and again, all of us in the adjacent berths got up to see what had happened, this middle aged man who was travelling with his wife and two friends wasn’t responding and wasn’t getting up. I jumped down to see what was wrong, his feet were cold and his eyes were rolled up but I figured that his pulse was still moving and he was trying to breath. We lay his head over some blankets and started to rub his hands and feet, the wife was in a shock and was just running all over she didn’t know what was happening. We tried asking her a lot of things about his medicines if he takes any but she just continued to panic. Thankfully the friend’s wife said he carries an inhaler, we searched all over but there was no inhaler in their belongings. We again asked the people accompanying them if they knew about any such episode that happened before but to my surprise they tried to ask the dying man which medicine he takes if ever needed and if he had been in a situation like this before. We asked everyone in the compartment if they had an inhaler and thankfully again got one and he used it as well. He started breathing more and near to normal for the next five minutes, but he was still not talking, in that matter of time we tried contacting the emergency ambulance, due to failure of response by them the ticket collector was called and requested to arrange for a medical help at the station as soon as we reach, since we were just five minutes away from our destination. To my surprise the TC was super casual about the entire thing and rather than getting the importance and urgency of the situation demanded a ticket first and since his wife was in an altered state and could not produce it he said he could extend his help only if the ticket was produced. May be they have some rules to go through the PNR and other things but then the delay in such a critical situation could be worse I wondered. Within no time from then the man’s hands started to turn outward again, his eyes begun to roll again, the inhaler was tried but he failed to breathe. I could see the lucknow streets from where our train was passing at a tortoise speed then and rather than the delay and confusion we decided to pull the chain and take him to the hospital which we could see right in front on the street. An auto was hired and he reached the hospital in another five minutes and by the time he did he was declared dead!

In a matter of minutes a precious life was over. In retrospect there are certain things which have been running in my mind and I would just write it here so that it can be taken care by anyone who reads this as well! 1) If someone around you has any medical ailments it becomes your responsibility to know what medicines they are taking, carry them with you always, and know what steps to follow if such a condition occurs. Remember you cannot rely on the sufferer that time. 2) If someone around you though doesn’t have any ailment and you are a non-medico yourself then as well it is extremely important for you to know about the basic medicines and procedures that should be done in a situation like this, there is no harm in carrying some emergency medicines with long expiry dates in your handbag when you are travelling.  3) Feed all the emergency numbers in your mobile straight away, we struggled to get the number of the emergency ambulance which should not be the case if anyone gets into something like this some other time. 4) In either case it doesn’t matter what your relation with the sufferer is the prime thing is “DO NOT PANIC”. 5) Always be prepared for the worse.

I was extremely disheartened by the incidence and I could not stop thinking of the things which went wrong here and there, but then it’s not possible to get back a lost life and neither talking about ‘what else could have been done’ do any good to anyone. All we need to do is learn and implement to improve what we already know, and realise that even your life can be a matter of seconds some day so live your best while you are still breathing!