Going Down for the Third Time (Cont.)
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But Thurman and Tip held him up long enough for them to get cross-chest carries on Bob, one from the left, the other at the right. By this time, I was recovered enough to help level Bob's body and begin to pull him through the water toward the bank of the river, still forty or fifty feet away. And I remember that during a part of the way--which seemed much longer than it really was--I helped somewhat by using first a hair carry (just pulling a person by the hair of his head) then towing with my hands on either side of his head, two of the carrying techniques someone had demonstrated for us a year or two earlier at the Y.M.C.A. I also pulled some at what was left of Bob's bathing suit, most of which was by then torn off and lost.

Others who had heard and witnessed what had been happening were now grouped on the bank ready to help, and when we arrived, several of them aided us in pulling Bob up to dry and level ground.

Life-saving instruction in the 1920's did not include the technique of mouth-to-mouth breathing; so we knew nothing about that. But we did begin immediately some other steps we had been taught. We pulled Bob's tongue forward as best we could, removed some foreign matter from his mouth, laid his body face down on the ground, but turned his head slightly to the side and placed his right cheek on his right forearm. He was still not breathing, and we were worried. The silence was awesome.

I then kneeled over his body, one knee on each side of him, and adjusted my position so that the palms of my hands were resting on the lower part of his rear rib cage. I remembered somehow that the little fingers must be at the lowermost ribs and that the remainder of the hands must be placed firmly against the ribs immediately above.

Leaning forward and pressing down slowly with all the strength I could muster, I began the only method of resuscitation I knew: pushing down firmly as I repeated the phrase, "out goes the bad air," then letting the hands slide suddenly out and off the sides of the victim's body, after which I raised myself to a sitting position, while repeating the next words, "in comes the good air" before starting the process again. These phrases had been taught in the course we took since their timing is close to that of the normal breathing cycle.

I continued for five or ten minutes with no apparent results, before being relieved by Thurman who coordinated his beginning movements with my release. In this way, the timing of the breathing sequence was not changed--a principle we had been told was extremely important.

Several of us took turns, continuing the process for twenty or twenty-five minutes before we noticed Bob was slowly beginning to breathe on his own. Seeing this surprising development, Tip was so excited, he blurted out, "Well, I'll be goldurned, that resuscitation stuff they taught us really works!"

Bob soon began to move. Then with some difficulty he sat up and looked around bewildered. It was obvious he remembered little of what had happened but apparently realized he had been in serious trouble.

To cap off this almost tragic event, Bob's girl friend who had been watching the revival came up to me and asked quite angrily, "What did you do with my pin?" When I asked her what pin, she continued almost in tears, "My high school graduation pin he always wore on the upper part of his bathing suit. It's not there now. How could you have possibly lost it?"

With that, Bob gave her a disgusted look and then winked weakly at me, but no one tried to answer the girl's question.

Chester C. Travelstead

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