Day 104: Cared For A Man Who Collapsed

Up until today (and every day after today) I have performed my random acts on the day that I blog about it. I made it a point that I would do my acts of kindness every single day of the year, and not do a bunch on the weekend and then stretch them across the blog. I just felt as though it was being disingenuous because one of the main themes behind this was to show that it isn't difficult to perform random acts of kindness every single day. Something that happened yesterday, however, led me to break my rule this one time. It was a truly random act of kindness and one that honestly worried the hell out of me.

While in the middle of my work day near Northwestern Hospital, a woman came running into the building I was in to ask for help. I didn't hear her at first, but the man at the front desk of the building ran over and asked if I could help the woman since he couldn't leave his post. I said of course and sprinted outside to see what was the matter. I saw an older gentleman lying halfway on the ground and halfway inside of a cab. At this point, my random acts weren't even a thought, I just knew that I had to help the man. When I came up, he was completely out of it. He had just left a doctor's appointment, and as he was getting into a cab, he lost feeling in his legs and collapsed on the ground. I asked the woman he was with to call 911, and while she did that, I worked on getting the gentleman to a safe place on the sidewalk (the cab was in the middle of traffic). With the help of another passerby, we lifted the man over to the sidewalk. I held him up and stayed with him because he seemed to be very confused. I kept talking to him because he seemed to be losing it a little bit and I wanted to make sure he remained calm. In my own mind, I was getting somewhat frustrated because we were in the middle of a gigantic medical complex, the man was obviously having a medical issue, and people passed by like nothing was a matter, doctors included. Finally after about 10 minutes (again, we were in a medical complex and it took 10 minutes), the ambulance arrived. At that point the paramedics took over and loaded the man into the ambulance and drove away. The woman that he was with, a co-worker I later found out, thanked me and headed off to follow him to the ER. I only got his last name, and due to hospital regulations, I wasn't able to figure out if he was OK. So if somehow, anyone knows Mr. Snyder (Tom I think his name was) that had a medical emergency near Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, please pass along my well wishes. Since this technically took place yesterday, I will be sure to weave different small random acts into my daily routine.