Unexpected event

On my way up to Kirkby Stephen today I pulled off the M6 at Tebay and turned left towards Orton to use the loo at the J38 Service Area. It is an odd layout around that locality - just a mile to the north of the junction are Tebay Services on the main drag so few now leave the England - Scotland motorway to use the services off Junction 38. The main clientele seems to comprise of people travelling from the North East to Lancashire, and a few Service Area aficionados like bikers and truckers.

Just as I finished washing and drying my hands and as I took my first step towards the door a young guy of around thirty came into the toilets, glanced at me and suddenly had the worst epileptic fit I have ever seen anyone experience. His eyes defocused and he went backwards and sideways so fast you would have thought he'd had a massive electric shock. He bounced into the wall, his money and mobile phone scattering across the floor. One of those things that happens so dramatically that you really do experience it in slow motion. His body was slumped in such a way that he completely blocked the door and I found myself racking my brains to try and remember what you had to do in circumstances like this. Head sideways and try to ensure that his windpipe was clear was what came into my mind. He didn't seem to have swallowed his tongue.

I managed to clamber across him to get to his head and within a few moments somebody else, who knew him, arrived on the scene. He must have been part of a group and it obviously wasn't the first time because this new arrival rushed off to find help and within maybe half a minute two attendants in red sweatshirts arrived who seemed to kow exactly what to do and I just faded into the background and moved on.

I sometimes wish that I'd done a proper first aid course when I was young. It isn't the first time something similar has happened to me. Around thirty years ago a colleague down in Wales keeled over in our office reception area and there he was flat out and nobody was really sure what to do next. Our porter had done some First Aid in the army and got him onto his side so that he wouldn't choke and we called an ambulance. And hour later he was dead. Only 52 and a massive heart attack, probably there was nothing anyone could have done from that first moment but if you don't know what to do you don't KNOW that