Yesterday, as I started for the Roasting House door to drop off some newspapers, I met Robert warning me, “Don’t go in there.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“A woman is having a seizure in there.”
Like the ass I can be, I pushed passed and entered to find a young woman in the throes of a grand mal event. Cheryl was trying her best to keep her airway open while a man, on his knees, hovered over her.
Without saying anything, I gently rolled the woman onto her left side and took control of her head, which was banging against the wood floor. The man was beside himself with worry, and as I would later find out, he was her boyfriend.
Panicked, he politely asked, “Do you speak English?”
I answered, “I do.”
“Oh, shit, I forgot.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
A Storey County Ambulance arrived, and the two first responders took over her care. Soon, she came out of her poststictal condition and was sitting up.
“I’m embarrassed,” the man said in his British accent. “I forgot that we are in America. I’m used to being in Quebec, where it seems everyone but my girlfriend and I speak French.”
“No worries. It happens.”
The first responders helped the woman to her feet and escorted her to the waiting ambulance. The man quickly said thanks and left to get his car to follow his girlfriend to the hospital in Carson City.
The Old Blog in the Desert 