Yesterday our neighbour died just outside our house. He was in his car when he succumbed to a heart attack. I came home after a meeting to witness his body being put into the back of an ambulance. I knew it was a dead body because they covered the face and weren’t in any rush to leave. It was a surreal scene with police and paramedic vehicles blocking the street while neighbours stood outside their front doors looking on in shock. I didn’t know who it was at first, but it dawned on me as I began to take everything in.
The most unnerving thing was the fact that wifey and I saw him in his car earlier in the morning and she wondered if he was alright. I looked over (we were further down the street on the other side) and dismissed it as I attended to our foster son, thinking I saw him move as I looked over. I figured he was waiting for someone, maybe listening to the radio or something. It never crossed my mind that he was on the verge of death, maybe even dead already. Too much else clouding my mind - I had an appointment to keep, I was tired, I was worrying about finances or the state of the world. Maybe if I’d been more zen I would have chosen to do something. I don’t know.
A doctor friend of wifey said that most cardiac arrests outside of hospitals are fatal, so it was unlikely the outcome would have been different had we noticed earlier. And when we spoke to the neighbour’s son he reassured us we’d done nothing wrong. He was a retiree with a history of heart problems so it didn't seem much of a surprise. Perhaps it was just his time to go and things conspired to make it that way.
Still, can’t help but feel some guilt - he was right outside our house but we did nothing, and his wife is now a widow and his kids have lost their father. Damn.
I hope I can learn from this. Always err on the side of caution (even if you might feel a fool), don’t put your own petty circumstances above others and accept it may be your time to be a hero.
It might just save a life.
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