Daddy's Working

Aerie tells me that, over the 25 hours I worked ushering high school graduation ceremonies (8 of them) this weekend, she had this exchange with Thumper more times than she could count:

"Daddy?"

"Daddy's working."

"What's he doing?"

"He's working."

Yes, I was working. And my feet hurt, though maybe not quite as much since I was Gellin' like Magellan and all. That's a lot of graduations. That and Facebook have me thinking about high school a lot.

Oh, wait! I was going to tell you my EMS story first. Or my first EMS story. Or something.

Saturday, I worked a door most of the day, checking bags, handing out programs, directing people to restrooms and to the door from which the graduates would exit after the ceremonies. Two ladies, as they were leaving after the fourth of five ceremonies that day, approached me, and one of them said, "I don't know if we should mention this or not..."

They told me there was a woman sitting near them who was unconscious through the entire ceremony. They had tried to wake her, but she wouldn't respond. They shook her. Apparently they tried to offer her gum. Perhaps they thought a good chew would restore her, I don't know. So I found out where their seats were located, thanked them, and they went on their merry way.

The battery on my radio was dead, so I ran down to the next door to try their radio. It was also dead. I went to the next door. What can I say, it had been a long day, and those things only hold a charge for so long. But the radio at that second door was working! Hurrah! I radioed for the arena seating supervisor to meet me there, then ran to the seat location the patrons had specified. Lo and behold, there she was, dead to the world.

Actually, it never occurred to me that she might be dead. I didn't try to find a pulse, or listen for her breathing. She just looked asleep, so I tried to wake her up. I repeated, "Ma'am, can you wake up? I need you to wake up," while I shook her arm and slapped the back of her hand. Her head moved half an inch to the left, but she didn't wake up. The seating supervisor had arrived, so I quickly filled him in and told him to call for EMS. Then I returned to my door, which I had left unsupervised when I started this adventure.

And that was it. I returned to my door. Later, I saw the arena seating supervisor, and he told me that EMS came, and they tried to wake her, too. They pushed her head back. They rolled her eyelids open. She was still out. Then suddenly she woke up. She said she was exhausted because she had driven many hours. EMS didn't transport her to the hospital, even.

So, there you go. That's my EMS story. Not quite as exciting a tale as that told by the ushers who were witness to the fight in the bathroom at a boxing event a couple of years ago, in which a bone was broken and police pepper spray was deployed, but still. I started this post thinking I was going to talk about high school, and offer some observations from the two graduations in which I was on the arena floor amongst the graduates, but now it's too late, and I'm too tired, and the boy will up too early. Another time, then.