The Moment That Changed Everything: A Reflection on Helping Others and Saving Lives

I still remember the day that changed my life forever. I was running a race, and it was going well until something unexpected happened. As I was nearing the finish line, I suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotions and started crying uncontrollably. I had no idea why I was feeling this way, but as I looked up, I saw someone in the crowd shouting words of encouragement towards me. It was a kind stranger who had noticed my distress and wanted to help.

Her name is Christine, and she was running her first race that day. We talked for just a minute, but her words of support and understanding stopped me from breaking down completely. She told me about the fact that she was new to racing and didn't know what to expect. In that moment, I realized how fragile life can be and how easily things can go wrong. We are all broken and hurt at some point in our lives, and it's up to us to reach out to others when they need help.

That event had a profound impact on me, but not just for my own well-being. It made me realize the importance of being there for others when they need us most. As I reflected on that day, I realized that we all have the potential to make a difference in someone's life. Whether it's a simple act of kindness or going out of our way to help someone in need, every small action can have a significant impact.

The story I shared with Christine was a turning point for me. It made me realize that when someone is hurting, all they need is someone to talk to. A kind word, a listening ear, and a willingness to help can stop them from breaking down completely. As I looked around at the crowd that day, I saw so many people who could have been in Christine's shoes or mine. We are all potential lifesavers, not just for those we know but also for strangers like Christine.

I was part of something bigger than myself when I was by Christine's side as she finished her first race. I was a witness to the events that unfolded, and although I had no idea what was happening at the time, I later found out that the man who passed away had a pre-existing condition that couldn't have been prevented. This realization gave me some solace, but it also made me appreciate how quickly life can change.

The experience left an indelible mark on my family as well. My kids and wife are everything to me, and I couldn't bear the thought of losing any of them. Losing someone close is never easy, but having to deal with the pain of losing a loved one to something beyond our control can be especially devastating.

As I reflect on that day, I am reminded of how precious life is. In an instant, everything can change, and we must cherish every moment we have with those around us. The experience taught me to appreciate the little things in life and to never take anything for granted. It also made me realize that even if it's just a simple act of kindness or saying hello to someone, we all have the potential to make a difference in someone's life.

The day I was crying on the side of the road still haunts me, but in a good way. It reminds me of how fragile life is and how important it is to be there for others when they need us most. As I continue on my journey, I am more determined than ever to reach out to people who may be struggling and to make a difference in their lives. Whether it's through words of encouragement or simply being present for someone, we all have the power to save lives and make a positive impact on those around us.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI'm trying to start this video for a really long time I'm gonna finally go do it so I've been trying to start this video for months I'm having really hard time with it for a couple of reasons one is because it's not very fun it's something that is a probably hard for me to talk about may not be a lot of fun for you but I'm trying to make myself do it because I think it's important I think there's some value here so I'm just saying that upfront that this is probably not fun but I would appreciate it if you would watch to the end because I think it matters I have this really gorgeous scene out here that I wanted to show off as well all right so so here's the thing like I said I would appreciate it if you would watch to the end but um also I got to start out with a couple of things I'm fine I'm not asking for any sort of pity or you know you guys asking if I'm okay in the comments that's not what this is about this is about me sharing an experience that I had that I hope will help you or help somebody at some point got that out of the way so back in July I did one of these one day Docs and I talked about beginning my training for my fourth marathon that was in July and I haven't talked about it since then and the marathon date was beginning in November a lot of people asked me about it asked how it was and I just kind of skirted it because I didn't want to have to answer it I didn't want to have to explain the whole story because it was rough it was a rough day not just because I didn't do well in the race it was rough for a lot of reasons and I'm finally at a point where I wanted to talk about it so like I said before I'm fine you don't have to worry about me you don't have to ask if I'm okay I've talked to people it's good here's kind of how the day went down I was running along about mile nine it was extremely hot day in fact they ended up cutting the race short because it was so hot so humid that people were having trouble people were having a lot of trouble running and I was having trouble it was you know rough but I was getting through it and also when you're running races a lot of times you'll see people you know pull off to the side because they get tired they will get excited because it's a race they run too fast and then they have to take a break and so you'll see people peel off the track and usually they peel off and they stand there in the catch their breath and then they get back into the run but it's kind of common that you check on the people that are off to the side right if you see somebody stumble you see somebody fall down because that happens sometimes you check on you make sure they're okay because it's kind of the good thing to do so I'm running along around mile nine and I see a guy go off the side of the road right next to me I was coming up behind him he went off the side of the road but he went off in a way that was not just like I'm stepping out of the way to take a break he stumbled and he fell down on all fours and he was he was still walking still moving but he was on all fours and so I kind of pulled over to the side I said hey man you okay everything all right and he turned around and he was out of breath looking kind of pasty he said he said I'm okay I'm fine just go ahead go ahead you know and I stopped for a second um thought I should go ahead but then he he stumbled pretty hard and he fell back on all fours and he was kind of sitting back and having a hard time and then he tried to get up again and run but he just it was obvious he couldn't so I said hey man stay right there let me go get you a medic just stay there don't try to run it's not worth it's just a race because we were right in between two medic stations which are a half mile apart or something I told him to stay there and I turned to start to run to find him a medic and when I did he fell backwards onto his back and his eyes rolled back in his head and so I thought he had passed out and I went down and I picked him up as best I could he was my size so it wasn't you know it's not like a smaller person so I had I picked him up as best as I could and I started yelling for a medic because he had I thought he had passed out and so I was trying to wake him up and yelling for a medic and immediately people were coming out of the race I'm a doctor I'm a nurse I know CPR I'm a first responder people were just immediately there and they were putting ice on his chest and they were doing what they had to do and they took his pulse and he didn't have a pulse while I'm holding this guy this guy was around my age in fact I found out later that he was a year younger than me he was healthy and I realized that he died while I was holding him like I said there were nurses there there were people and they we laid him down they immediately started doing CPR on him and eventually got to where there were so many people there trying to help that they had to say everybody back off we have enough people we have this and this is all while the medics are running from both directions trying to get to this place and I just backed off I stood off to the side there was no way I could help I'm not a first responder I didn't know exactly what to do and it in the moment it hadn't even occurred to me that he that anything other than him passing out was actually happening why in the world would somebody die while they were running a race it didn't even occur to me so I didn't think to check for a pulse I didn't think about how bad it got in a split second I thought he had just passed out so anyway they worked on him they did CPR I backed off because I was in the way at that point and I just stood back and prayed for him because I didn't know what else to do honestly I mean it just knocked me off my feet it just caught me totally off-guard it changed a lot of stuff in a split second for me I've never been faced with death firsthand and part of this whole process was me realizing that there are a lot of people around us each day who are faced with death in that capacity or far worse and I had no experience that could help them that could let me interact with them or understand what they go through and since then I've understood a little bit better that like people who are police officers and firefighters they are faced with gruesome violence and death every day and they have no way to deal with it they have no way to internalize it and get through it without help but you also don't really hear about that you don't hear about those people who are are dealing with the fact that they saw people die in horrific ways or that they tried to help and they couldn't help over and over and over and that's their job this happened to me one time and actually nothing really happened to me I was there when something happened someone else that's one of the frustrating things there was a lot of going on right there I was kind of in the way I backed off and at some point I heard them say I thought I heard them say that they had gotten a pulse I thought okay I can move on and of course I didn't want to finish running the race but I was nine miles out so I figured I would go around the next loop and then just quit and so I tried to run a little bit and then I just started crying and I couldn't stop crying but I was still running and I had run maybe I don't know 200 feet from this whole event and I was just about to stop because I was bawling and somebody in the crowd in the race yelled hey Bob I like to make stuff and it turned around and there was this really nice lady I believe her name was Christine or Christina I don't really remember now but she was like I'm so glad to see you I told my husband I would probably run into you on the race I'm a big fan and so I talked to her in the moment of me just about losing it and she told me about the fact that she was running her first race and you know we talked for just a minute but fact being is like her talking to me and reaching out to me stopped me from completely breaking down so I went on and I ran a lot of the race and I stopped and cried pretty often and I had a hard time and I was in shock honestly for about two days before it really hit me before I really started talking to people about it and since then I've dealt with it but the thing that's important about this I think is that in that story in that event we are all at least one of those people or have the potential to be at least one of those people pretty much every day every single one of us is broken and hurt in alone on the side of the road gasping for air not understanding why we feel like we're about to die we're all like that at some point we are all the person that has the potential to reach out to somebody like that and just make sure they're okay and to try to get them help even if we don't know what to do even if we don't know how to make them better we have the potential to reach out for them on their behalf and get them help we also have the potential when someone is hurting to just say something nice to them to say it's good to see them and that can stop them from breaking down just like Christine did for me we all have the potential to go save a life to reach out to somebody who's just in a bad spot and yell for a medic you know we have a chance to be a medic if that's who we are we have a chance to actually save lives and and to put ourselves in positions to where other people's lives are more important than ours there's just a lot there there's a lot of different things that we can do to help the people around us whether we know them or not whether they we think that they need our help or not whether we know what to do or how to help we have tons of power to take care of people and I hope I just really hope that we take advantage of all those opportunities to help people because when I look back at that day and I see how jacked up it was for that man to be running a race and to lose his life and how that affected his family and all the people around him and the race as a whole made a huge impact but if there hadn't been people there to help him and to help me and help everybody else involved it would have been worse you know I'm part of this thing is that like I was the first one there I was the one that was there with him when he passed and so there's part of me that thought like I could have done more I should have done more I could have maybe saved his life I could have had something else to do there to have a bigger part of his last moments I came to find out later that he actually had a pre-existing condition and there was basically nothing that anyone could have done to stop what happened so that gave me a little bit of Solace but at the same time he went through a lot of pain he had to have been scared and his family doesn't have him anymore that's pretty tough because when I think about my kids and my wife how would that leave them you know it's tough to deal with it's tough to think about gives you a little bit more perspective on like how important moments are and how stuff can just happen so quickly out of nowhere and can change everything for good or for bad it's not all bad anyway I just I know it's kind of dramatic and personal and maybe it won't matter to anybody but hopefully it matters to somebody hopefully it's helpful to somebody because I think we have an opportunity to help people and I think we should even if it's tiny even if it's just saying hi to somebody anyway I think I finally got that out which is good because that's been on my mind for a long time and it's really nice to have it not on my mind anymore that's itI'm trying to start this video for a really long time I'm gonna finally go do it so I've been trying to start this video for months I'm having really hard time with it for a couple of reasons one is because it's not very fun it's something that is a probably hard for me to talk about may not be a lot of fun for you but I'm trying to make myself do it because I think it's important I think there's some value here so I'm just saying that upfront that this is probably not fun but I would appreciate it if you would watch to the end because I think it matters I have this really gorgeous scene out here that I wanted to show off as well all right so so here's the thing like I said I would appreciate it if you would watch to the end but um also I got to start out with a couple of things I'm fine I'm not asking for any sort of pity or you know you guys asking if I'm okay in the comments that's not what this is about this is about me sharing an experience that I had that I hope will help you or help somebody at some point got that out of the way so back in July I did one of these one day Docs and I talked about beginning my training for my fourth marathon that was in July and I haven't talked about it since then and the marathon date was beginning in November a lot of people asked me about it asked how it was and I just kind of skirted it because I didn't want to have to answer it I didn't want to have to explain the whole story because it was rough it was a rough day not just because I didn't do well in the race it was rough for a lot of reasons and I'm finally at a point where I wanted to talk about it so like I said before I'm fine you don't have to worry about me you don't have to ask if I'm okay I've talked to people it's good here's kind of how the day went down I was running along about mile nine it was extremely hot day in fact they ended up cutting the race short because it was so hot so humid that people were having trouble people were having a lot of trouble running and I was having trouble it was you know rough but I was getting through it and also when you're running races a lot of times you'll see people you know pull off to the side because they get tired they will get excited because it's a race they run too fast and then they have to take a break and so you'll see people peel off the track and usually they peel off and they stand there in the catch their breath and then they get back into the run but it's kind of common that you check on the people that are off to the side right if you see somebody stumble you see somebody fall down because that happens sometimes you check on you make sure they're okay because it's kind of the good thing to do so I'm running along around mile nine and I see a guy go off the side of the road right next to me I was coming up behind him he went off the side of the road but he went off in a way that was not just like I'm stepping out of the way to take a break he stumbled and he fell down on all fours and he was he was still walking still moving but he was on all fours and so I kind of pulled over to the side I said hey man you okay everything all right and he turned around and he was out of breath looking kind of pasty he said he said I'm okay I'm fine just go ahead go ahead you know and I stopped for a second um thought I should go ahead but then he he stumbled pretty hard and he fell back on all fours and he was kind of sitting back and having a hard time and then he tried to get up again and run but he just it was obvious he couldn't so I said hey man stay right there let me go get you a medic just stay there don't try to run it's not worth it's just a race because we were right in between two medic stations which are a half mile apart or something I told him to stay there and I turned to start to run to find him a medic and when I did he fell backwards onto his back and his eyes rolled back in his head and so I thought he had passed out and I went down and I picked him up as best I could he was my size so it wasn't you know it's not like a smaller person so I had I picked him up as best as I could and I started yelling for a medic because he had I thought he had passed out and so I was trying to wake him up and yelling for a medic and immediately people were coming out of the race I'm a doctor I'm a nurse I know CPR I'm a first responder people were just immediately there and they were putting ice on his chest and they were doing what they had to do and they took his pulse and he didn't have a pulse while I'm holding this guy this guy was around my age in fact I found out later that he was a year younger than me he was healthy and I realized that he died while I was holding him like I said there were nurses there there were people and they we laid him down they immediately started doing CPR on him and eventually got to where there were so many people there trying to help that they had to say everybody back off we have enough people we have this and this is all while the medics are running from both directions trying to get to this place and I just backed off I stood off to the side there was no way I could help I'm not a first responder I didn't know exactly what to do and it in the moment it hadn't even occurred to me that he that anything other than him passing out was actually happening why in the world would somebody die while they were running a race it didn't even occur to me so I didn't think to check for a pulse I didn't think about how bad it got in a split second I thought he had just passed out so anyway they worked on him they did CPR I backed off because I was in the way at that point and I just stood back and prayed for him because I didn't know what else to do honestly I mean it just knocked me off my feet it just caught me totally off-guard it changed a lot of stuff in a split second for me I've never been faced with death firsthand and part of this whole process was me realizing that there are a lot of people around us each day who are faced with death in that capacity or far worse and I had no experience that could help them that could let me interact with them or understand what they go through and since then I've understood a little bit better that like people who are police officers and firefighters they are faced with gruesome violence and death every day and they have no way to deal with it they have no way to internalize it and get through it without help but you also don't really hear about that you don't hear about those people who are are dealing with the fact that they saw people die in horrific ways or that they tried to help and they couldn't help over and over and over and that's their job this happened to me one time and actually nothing really happened to me I was there when something happened someone else that's one of the frustrating things there was a lot of going on right there I was kind of in the way I backed off and at some point I heard them say I thought I heard them say that they had gotten a pulse I thought okay I can move on and of course I didn't want to finish running the race but I was nine miles out so I figured I would go around the next loop and then just quit and so I tried to run a little bit and then I just started crying and I couldn't stop crying but I was still running and I had run maybe I don't know 200 feet from this whole event and I was just about to stop because I was bawling and somebody in the crowd in the race yelled hey Bob I like to make stuff and it turned around and there was this really nice lady I believe her name was Christine or Christina I don't really remember now but she was like I'm so glad to see you I told my husband I would probably run into you on the race I'm a big fan and so I talked to her in the moment of me just about losing it and she told me about the fact that she was running her first race and you know we talked for just a minute but fact being is like her talking to me and reaching out to me stopped me from completely breaking down so I went on and I ran a lot of the race and I stopped and cried pretty often and I had a hard time and I was in shock honestly for about two days before it really hit me before I really started talking to people about it and since then I've dealt with it but the thing that's important about this I think is that in that story in that event we are all at least one of those people or have the potential to be at least one of those people pretty much every day every single one of us is broken and hurt in alone on the side of the road gasping for air not understanding why we feel like we're about to die we're all like that at some point we are all the person that has the potential to reach out to somebody like that and just make sure they're okay and to try to get them help even if we don't know what to do even if we don't know how to make them better we have the potential to reach out for them on their behalf and get them help we also have the potential when someone is hurting to just say something nice to them to say it's good to see them and that can stop them from breaking down just like Christine did for me we all have the potential to go save a life to reach out to somebody who's just in a bad spot and yell for a medic you know we have a chance to be a medic if that's who we are we have a chance to actually save lives and and to put ourselves in positions to where other people's lives are more important than ours there's just a lot there there's a lot of different things that we can do to help the people around us whether we know them or not whether they we think that they need our help or not whether we know what to do or how to help we have tons of power to take care of people and I hope I just really hope that we take advantage of all those opportunities to help people because when I look back at that day and I see how jacked up it was for that man to be running a race and to lose his life and how that affected his family and all the people around him and the race as a whole made a huge impact but if there hadn't been people there to help him and to help me and help everybody else involved it would have been worse you know I'm part of this thing is that like I was the first one there I was the one that was there with him when he passed and so there's part of me that thought like I could have done more I should have done more I could have maybe saved his life I could have had something else to do there to have a bigger part of his last moments I came to find out later that he actually had a pre-existing condition and there was basically nothing that anyone could have done to stop what happened so that gave me a little bit of Solace but at the same time he went through a lot of pain he had to have been scared and his family doesn't have him anymore that's pretty tough because when I think about my kids and my wife how would that leave them you know it's tough to deal with it's tough to think about gives you a little bit more perspective on like how important moments are and how stuff can just happen so quickly out of nowhere and can change everything for good or for bad it's not all bad anyway I just I know it's kind of dramatic and personal and maybe it won't matter to anybody but hopefully it matters to somebody hopefully it's helpful to somebody because I think we have an opportunity to help people and I think we should even if it's tiny even if it's just saying hi to somebody anyway I think I finally got that out which is good because that's been on my mind for a long time and it's really nice to have it not on my mind anymore that's it\n"