I witnessesed the most amazing thing ever on our vacation to San Francisco. Telling the story on the radio is usually pretty good for getting all the details out, but writing always seems the best. Amazingly though I am a bit concerned that writing or telling this story won't be able to capture the feeling of what happened at Ocean Beach in San Fran. I will try my best. Sit back, this may take a bit of time.

It was Monday July 6th. We were finishing up a walk through the San Francisco Zoo. I was tired. I felt sleepy and my stupid ankle hurt. Jackie wanted to walk through some nature trail at the zoo. We were almost done and all I wanted to do was leave. She persisted and we all agreed to walk through this nature path. It's important that this happened. If we had not gone down that trail for the 15 minute walk, the timing would not have worked out for what happened a short time later. We stopped in the gift shop on the way out. I got a coffee. I got the coffee because I knew my idea of going home and going to bed in the middle of the afternoon would not go over well with my wife and children. I had to wake up. It was important for timing later that I got that coffee. We got in our rented van and headed out of the zoo. The zoo is right next to the ocean. The kids wanted to go to the beach and look for sand dollars. Diana and I saw a bunch when we went running earlier. I jumped on The Great Highway, headed north and then realized my mistake: Once you get on The Great Highway, you can't get off for a couple miles. This sucked at the time because we passed the spot on the beach where I knew there were a ton of sand dollars. I went the 3 mile length of the road until I happened upon the Ocean Beach parking lot. It was of utmost importance that we wound up at this point of the beach at this exact time. I figured, "Good enough. We'll get out here, fart around and look for sea shells and stuff. Perfect."

It was a warmer day for San Francisco standards. It was about 66 degrees and sunny. The wind was very strong. The water was about 55 degrees and the waves were vicious. I was walking behind Diana, Jim, Jackie and Madison. I was shooting random video of them. Jim picked up a rock and in a usual case of 14 year old judgement, threw it at me. It nearly hit me in the head. I started to freak out while the camera was recording. I shut it off and proceeded to tell him that if that hit me I would of beaten the hillybilly shit out of him and to never do anything that stupid again. After taking care of that with some great "Eric parenting skills," I resumed my video duties. I was video taping Madison. She had pulled her pants up to her knees and was "calf deep" in the water. I pointed the camera down the beach (facing south). Diana and Jackie were in the shot. I pointed the camera back at Madison. We were all walking along merrily. Madison happened upon two boys roughly her age. The boys were also in the water. Madison almost bumped into the boys as she wandered along. I kept my eyes on the boys and wondered where there parents were. I remember thinking with this vicious of wave activity that it didn't leave much room for error. As I thought this, one of the boys ran further into the surf. He was roughly waist deep. Something in the water had caught his eye and he ran out to get it. I remember abandoning the thought of "Where's his parents?" to "What if what caught his eye was a human hand or something?" It was one of those weird thoughts that normally quickly fades and is never thought of again. However, what happened next has made all of these ruminations become embedded forever in my brain. I turned my attention from the boys and again looked at Madison. I looked down the beach (south). Beyond Diana and Jackie, about 50 yards away, I saw what turned out to be a man on his hands and knees frantically moving around the body of a woman.

I remember exactly what I said and did. "Hey! Hey! Hey! Diane! Diane! Diane! Look! Look!" We were both instantly sprinting. Diana was a good 100 feet ahead of me. I turned to my son as I started running. "Get your sister out of the water and get on the beach and wait! Now!" We booked it. Deja Vu all over again.

This happened to us once before. In the summer of 1996 Diana and I were at Higgins Lake in Michigan. A young seven year old was pulled from the water and was unresponsive. Among all the people there, Diana worked her way in and started doing CPR on the kid. She was doing the chest compressions. There was another person doing the chest compressions before Diana, but that person was not doing them right. You have to be on the right spot of the chest, and you have to go deep. The way it's done in films is not correct. Diana got a weak pulse on the kid, but things did not go well. The child died later on.

Fast forward 13 years, almost to the date and I'm running down the beach to go witness it all again.

We get to the victim and the guy helping her. Diana got there first. I freaked. What I remember is a bit of a blur. However I will never forget the look on the woman's face. Thank God for the woman's sake that my wife was clear headed. The woman was just pulled out of the water by the guy. His name was Mike. Mike was a bit panicked also. Diana got down on her hands and knees and took charge. She knows CPR. Mike knew CPR also but was rather unsure of himself. I can see why. It was intimidating as fuck to deal with this. He quickly got himself composed though as the two started to work together. The woman had no pulse and was not breathing. Immediately upon starting the chest compressions, a lot of water and vomit came out of her. Diana and Mike rolled the woman on her side to get it out. The woman's eyes were open and also not responsive. To me, she was dead. I guess technically she was. Diana was agressively pumping the woman's chest. Very soon after starting Diana had broken the victim's ribs. This happens most of the time. Broken ribs is a small price. The key was, blood was being pumped to her brain with oxygen from Mike. By this time, another bystander was on the phone to 911. It wasn't long before the paramedics were dispatched. They were about one mile away, but had to get on the beach. My son ran up the dune to flag them down. About 10 minutes had passed since the time the woman was found to when paramedics arrived on the scene. My attention turned to Diana, Mike and the victim. "We've got a pulse!" Diana yelled. I remember earlier Diana telling Mike to "do a finger sweep." The woman had all sorts of shit in her throat that was blocking her airway. Seaweed, vomit and God knows what. They got as much out as they could. Mike was a trooper. It sounds gross, but he was putting his mouth on this woman's vomit covered face. It made him sick. He barfed, wiped his face and went back at it. Holy shit! These two were amazing. They were working very well together. One by one the calvary arrived. First the beach patrol, then the EMT's and Fire Department. Diana and Mike were finally relieved of their duties. I held Diana and we cried.

The medical teams were working hard on the woman. I've no idea what they were doing, but I did not feel good. She looked really shitty. Diana and I started to pray. We prayed hard and long. I started thinking of that book by Don Piper, "90 Minutes in Heaven." If you haven't read it, it's a good book. If you have, remember when Don was in the wreck and the dude got in the car with him after the EMT's said he was dead? That's what I thought about. I thought about just sitting next to the crew and the victim and praying on my knees. So I did. I got on my knees and prayed right behind the paramedics. I put my head down and wept and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed. After a while I looked up and one of the EMT's facing me made eye contact with me. He knodded his head and gave me a thumbs up. I looked over my shoulder to see if he was communicating with someone behind me. Nobody was there. He was communicating to me that something positive was happening. He wouldn't of done that if he didn't feel good about the woman's condition. I was shocked. To me, our prayers had been answered. I cried more and prayed more. Unbelievable. The woman left in the emergency vehicles. We talked for a bit with the other first responder (Mike). I told him how great of a job he did. It turns out he was on the beach flying a kite when he saw the woman. She was face down washing up on the shore when he saw her. Who knows how long she had been under. Mike ran in and got her. That's when we saw her. He was a bit upset, so he gathered up his kite and left. We walked back to our van and went home. Before we left, one of the fire fighters told us that we could get an update on the woman's condition by calling their firehouse. They called Diana "hero" and told her that if she had not responded swiftly along with Mike that the woman would for sure be dead. They also pointed out that it is in fact quite rare to be able to restart a person's heart. The ten minutes that they worked on her pushed oxygenated blood to the brain of the victim. This made all the difference between life and death. Their efforts gave the woman a chance at surviving. I am very proud of Diana. I know I couldn't of done it. What an ass kicker she is. Seriously, I wish you could of seen her. It was out of a movie. I was flabergasted at how in control she was. Awesome!

As we walked back to the beach we wondered when we would learn more about this victim. We needed to find out if she had survived. We got an update that night on the 10 o'clock news. The anchor reported that unidentified persons rescued an elderly woman from drowning and that she was conscious as she arrived at the hospital. This was good news. I called the firehouse and told them. The Lieutenant on duty talked about how Diana was the talk of the firehouse. They were very impressed with how effective her CPR was. The firehouse had our cell phone info and our names to pass along to the victims family in case they needed to get in touch with us.

Two days later on Wednesday we were riding around Napa on our way to a tour of an animal preserve. While driving I missed a call from a 415 area code phone number. I called it back and it was the nurses station of the intensive care unit of the hopital. I explained who my wife was and that somebody from the floor had called my phone. "We can't give you any information about the patient." She said. "I know that." I said. "But somebody from intensive care called me. Obviously somebody wants to talk to my wife. Can you ask around?" The nurse checked around but found out nothing. I again explained what I was after, hoping to get some type of update on this woman's condition. The nurse finally gave it up: "Her breathing tube is out, and she is doing much better." Holy shit. I hung up and told Diana. She lost it and came unglued. She wept uncontrollably for several minutes. Wow, that was heavy.

Later on that evening, I was able to talk to the victim's nurse. She said the woman wanted to talk to Diana. She transferred the call to the woman's room and I gave the phone to Diana. They spoke for 5-10 minutes. The woman was alive and was going to keep living. The conversation they had really cemented things for us, and especially Diana. After a few minutes, Diana could tell that the woman was tiring and needed rest, so she cut the call short. But she was satisfied and happy that the tale ended happy.


Well, that's it. I guess I'll wrap this up by encouraging every person reading this to take a CPR class and get certified. Especially you people with children. You never know when the training will save a life. Hell, take the class with your spouse. You can have it done in a weekend and you'll connect together. Please do this.

Oh, one more thing. There are select moments in my life when I've felt close to God. Whether you choose to believe or not, we felt that during these moments.

Thank you for reading the blog and thank you for listening to the radio show. Please patronize the businesses that advertise on our show...especially the local ones.

Eric