Some moments in life are stop-action, played out frame by frame. Occasionally one frame is so significant you will carry it with you forever, a frozen picture imprinted on your brain. Events so traumatic may be tragic or funny or just plain life-changing.

     I had been an EMT for about two years when I earned my Basic Life Support CPR Instructor certification. I had already used CPR as a field medic, but I had never used the Heimlich manuever and hoped I would never have to.

     I walked into the Sprouse Reitz store in Canby, Oregon with my son Brian who was just a baby. There was a tall, elderly man standing at the front counter when we entered. I noticed that he didn't look very well, but he was old so I didn't think very much about it. I plunked Brian in a baskart and buckled him in. The store was in its last days of operation so they had excellent sales going on and there were lots of people taking advantage of the good prices.

     I shopped for only a few minutes when I heard a commotion at the front desk and a horrible sound. Like someone choking. I turned to see the old man standing there looking like death warmed over with both hands clamped around his throat and his eyes kind of bugging out. His mouth hung open and slack. My heart pounded in my throat as I caught my breath. The old man WAS choking!

     I turned from Brian and took a step away. He instantly screamed in the high, piercing sound only a baby in dire emergency can make. People in the store looked my direction to see who was abusing the baby that was now piteously wailing at the top of his lungs because Mommy was leaving!!! Store patrons only knew I was running away from a screaming infant and all eyes were glued suspiciously on my every movement. My baby was safe, but the old man would surely die if someone didn't help him and I was just the person: a medic and a CPR and Heimlich teacher.

     In my dreams, I am always the hero, saving someone from some unspeakable peril. This, though, was real. I leaped through the store mach 10 but felt as if I was in slow motion.Down the aisles I went, leaving my screaming baby behind me, focused on the old man who so desperately needed my help. The instant adrenelin rush lifted me from the floor so that my leaps were a graceful three feet off the ground, each one a stop-action freeze-frame. Toe on the floor. Click. Leap in mid-air. Click. Toe on the floor. Click. I could save the old man's life! I just needed to get there in a hurry. People can go without oxygen for only about four minutes before brain cells begin dying off at incredible rates and, even if you save a life, there could be irreversible brain damage. No one wants to live as a vegetable so time is of the essence. Between six and ten minutes without oxygen brain death occurs.

     But Margaret was there to save the day! Wonder Woman! Super hero! Angel of Mercy! My final leap positioned me by his side. Not realizing my super hero adrenilin strength, I grabbed his feeble arm and shook him till his head flopped back and forth. Because I had been trained to do so, in the calmest voice I could manage, I screamed in his face, "ARE YOU CHOKING???!!!" My unusually quiet demeanor caused the customers in the store to drop their purchases where they stood and stare at me just to see if that insane woman had now gone completely beserk and was going to kill someone. People, with their eyes riveted on me, began backing toward the closest exits, dragging their reluctant children with them and tripping backwards over the drygoods which now littered the aisles.. Their kids, it seemed, only wanted a better view.

     The elderly gentleman, once his head resettled on his neck and he regained his equilibrium, turned to me calmly and, without removing his hands from his throat, said in a metalic twang, "No, I just can't get this stupid voice box to work right today." He smiled graciously, taking in my wild eyes and my hair which I'm sure was standing on end and smoking. "Thank you for asking," he continued. And I'm sure he was thankful. Had I not asked, his family would probably own my screaming baby and I would still be fighting litigation from them for having killed him.

     It is very difficult, under those circumstances, to extricate oneself unobtrusively from a social gaffe of that magnitude. What do you say, "Oh, never mind."? I don't remember saying anything. I do, however, remember wishing that life as I knew it would simply cease to exist. That everything would come to a stop and I would not have to deal with the humiliation I had caused myself. Fortunately my son was too young to remember or I'm sure he would still remind me daily. Most teens would love having memories of their parents making total fools of themselves. It would be a serious weapon and could weild great power.

     I left the store humbly after retrieving and quieting my son. His screaming was far less dramatic than my aborted rescue attempt. I didn't buy anything that day and didn't have the nerve to return to take advantage of any of the sales. I could just picture the clerks in my mind, AQuick! Call 9-1-1 and lock the door. It=s that crazy lady again and I think she=s headed this way!@ I was actually glad they closed the store. I can't account for the fact that the old man looked so bad. Who knows, when I'm 95 maybe I'll look that bad. In fact, another incident like that and I may look a lot worse a lot sooner. As it is, just the memory causes me to stop what I'm doing and contemplate the look of death. Somehow embarrassment is equated with expressions like, "I could have died a thousand deaths," but what we really mean is that we wish the incident itself could have died without us taking part. Oh, well, humility is supposed to be good for the soul. I ought to have a pretty rich soul.