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[SSP]

Today's Friday. End of the week, nice day, no real hard work, easy skate-along day. Yay, right?

Holy shit no.

My first class of the day was TV, which is typically something to be enjoyed. I was doing a project with a friend of mine, Brianna, and she said she was really dizzy and would hopefully not need to go to the nurse. Mr. Lewis, my teacher, told her she should probably go anyway and I should walk her down. I remarked I was kind of dizzy too (which I was) and he joked saying that he should avoid the two of us.

Anyway, I walked her down and everything was fine. We did planning for our project until 5-10 minutes before the end of class, when Mr. Lewis told us that he'd need a lot of us to fill in for morning news positions due to his Broadcast Journalism class being on a field trip. He only decided he needed 3 of us, though, and he ended up choosing me for on-camera talent, my partner for weatherperson, and another guy (a volunteer fireman, I should add) as the director. Everyone else left class.

My friend and I, who were in the TV studio, decided we'd prepare while Mr. Lewis, Mr. Kane (or A/V pro) and Dan (the other guy) were preparing in the control room (which is separated from the studio by only a wall of glass). I heard footsteps from the nearby staircase; another one of our techies (Jason) was coming down. I could tell he was going into the control room, though neither my friend nor I were paying much attention; I was looking through announcements to say for the news and my friend was preparing the weather powerpoint on one of the studio computers. Then I overheard Jason walking over to us, and he told us something kind of...different, to say the least.

"Guys, Mr. Lewis collapsed."

What the hell?

Mr. Kane came in afterwards. "No news today."

I glanced through the glass wall, along with Jason and Brianna. Mr. Lewis was on the ground, almost motionless, but with slight, involuntary movement. Dan was on the ground next to him. Both nurses had already made it down; one was at the phone and the other attending to Mr. Lewis. Mr. Kane was trying to get Mr. Lewis's attention..."Chuck. Chuck?" But there was no response.

More footsteps at the staircase...another friend of mine, Dave. Jason told him Mr. Lewis had collapsed. The four of us stayed in the TV studio...we made sure to be away, but we didn't know what to do. I know I certainly felt helpless.

More footsteps; running this time. Our principal, our vice principal, and our assistant principal all ran to the control room to check on Mr. Lewis while the four of us waited in the studio; unsure of what to do.

Nobody understood what was going on. While in our shock we talked in whispers as if someone else would hear us, and we asked questions like "Do you think he'll die?" and got replies of "Dear God, I hope not." We talked as if we each had something the rest didn't know, yet we all only knew what was going on before us. We hardly even paid attention to the voices on the other side of the glass, or even Dan's pager going off to inform all volunteers that a man had collapsed in the high school.

Holy shit. By God, what the hell was going on? I don't know if you've seen something like this, but it puts you into serious shock. Especially if it's someone that you care a lot about and you know everyone cares about.

The assistant principal told us to go to the upper part of the AV department (basically just at the top of the stairs) and stay there to make to sure that nobody went through there. We took a peek outside the department and noticed a bunch of people staring out the windows--a fire truck and an ambulance had arrived. Brianna stayed behind briefly while Dave went to break up the crowd; Jason and I ran to the school entrance to make sure that it was possible to get in the building.

Holy shit.

At that point the four of us waited and talked at our post, since the shock had dissolved to some extent and we could logically think about what had just happened. Jason sent a text message to Mr. Lewis's TV Management intern, who happened to be in the Broadcast Journalism class on the field trip. The rest of us talked about things that I really hardly even remember due to it all being so fast-paced, even if it didn't seem fast-paced. At this point the seizure had only happened about 5 minutes before.

The assistant principal took our post a few minutes later and we went to homeroom...or at least, we tried to. People were clogging up the halls simply staring at the ambulance wondering why it was there; teachers included. I told some people who had been in my TV class about what happened, and they too were shocked. The news seemed to spread fairly quickly; I hadn't told many and the story spread pretty far.

Ten to fifteen minutes into the panic I went to homeroom. Everything seemed normal, and the teacher asked where I had been. I explained where I was and what happened, and the room shut up fairly quickly...the teacher included, for once.

I never went to my next class. I went to the clinic and talked to the nurses about the whole thing and then got some rest and relaxation. The rest of the day was still normal classes, but they sure as hell didn't feel normal; I was still on my rush, and a ton of people were talking to me about what happened and were asking me about what was going on. I recounted the story many, many times to students and teachers alike. It was certainly easier to focus on that than my schoolwork; I was so out of it that it was as if I was still there in the TV studio, watching through the glass in shock.

But I'm home now, of course, and things are (hopefully) better. There isn't any official word on my teacher yet, but I'm hoping he'll be fine. Everyone loves the guy. It's just really terrible to just be stuck in shock like that...the first inclination is to help, but it's impossible to due to lack of experience for handling such a situation. That was definitely the worst thing for I think all four of us; we felt so helpless as we looked on and saw our teacher unconscious and twitching. I don't know if any of you have been in a situation like that, but it's a horrible feeling.

It just makes me glad that we DO have people who are professionals in the field who know exactly what to do and how to help, you know? There's very little that can be more rewarding than that, I think, to save a life like that...it's rather inspiring.

Edited October 25, 2008 by SSP

[HowAreYaBud]

Inspiring indeed.

[Meteor]

Fortunately it sounds like something he'll make a full recovery from. Interesting experience nonetheless.