Every once in a while, at lunch, some of the guys from the office and I will go play a round of disc golf at Rotary Park. It's a nice park with two nice courses. Typically I don't really have much of a reason to interact with others there other than to help folks find a wayward disc.
Today, as the title of this post might suggest, was a bit different.
As we finished playing on the 7th hole I noticed a older SUV parked on the road near the basket. There was a couple in the vehicle and the lady had just screamed, something along the lines of "Fucking Idiot", at the guy. I figured it was a typical argument; a lot of people around here seem to like to have couple disputes in public. Noticing the scream I decided I'd walk around the truck and avoid dealing with them.
Once past the truck I just walked along to the tee box of the 8th hole and sat down while waiting on Mark and Gilbert. Gilbert had run into some difficulties on the last hole so I figured Mark was just waiting on Gilbert. Then I looked back and saw Mark stop and then turn around and walk away from me toward the truck with woman I had heard scream. At that point I was concerned that Gilbert had potentially looked at the people in the truck and the guy had decided to get chippy and was yelling at Gilbert so Mark would have walked back to make peace.
I figured I was going to have to go up there and help get this guy to calm down so I jogged up and saw Gilbert talking on his phone into the truck and Mark was looking pretty serious and walking away from the truck toward the main road the brings you into the park at that point, Rotary Road.
At this point someone told me the guy in the truck was overdosing from Heroin. I approached the truck so I could talk to the lady and so Gilbert could step back and have a clear communication with 911 dispatch. As soon as I got the truck I saw that things weren't looking good. The guy was barely gasping for breath and his face was rapidly passing blue into the range of purple. I told the lady we needed to get him out of the truck and onto his side as he'd have an easier time of breathing - plus if needed we could perform CPR when that time came. She was pretty freaked out so Gilbert asked the dispatch if we should get the guy out on his side and they said we should.
I then asked the lady if he had any needles in him still. She said no so I hoped the truck, grabbed the guy around his chest and under his arms and drug him most of the way out of the truck. As his legs cleared the vehicle though his feet wouldn't move. They were wedged under the gas and clutch. I pulled again but I couldn't get him to move at all so I laid him down and asked Gilbert to help me free his feet. Gilbert pulled on one but couldn't get it out at first so he had to sort of twist the foot to get it out from the clutch. Then I did the same to his other foot and had him freed. Then I dragged him the rest of the way from the truck and rolled him on his side while propping his head up a little to keep his neck level.
At this point two women came running over from a different part of the park saying they were nurses so I got up and figured I'd let the experts help him. They asked what happened and I told them he had OD'd. They split up and one on each side of him they seemed to take his pulse and claimed it was good - I was surprised because I had felt barely any pulse at all and Gilbert thought it was very slow and was skipping some beats.
Then as Gilbert was talking to the 911 people one of the nurses started to do light chest compressions the guy and even started mouth to mouth. It honestly didn't make a lot of sense because they were still saying he had a strong pulse. The 911 dispatcher told them to stop with the CPR if his heart was still beating (which is what both Gilbert and I had thought).
Meanwhile there were two guys who were with the two "nurses". They came over and one of them told me that when the cops showed up I should say that I didn't know anything about the Heroin so that they suspect me. I told him that the cops was "the least of my worries" and that he should go talk to the girl who was with the guy dying at my feet. At that point I heard the ambulance siren but it sounded like it was coming into the wrong part of the park so I told Gilbert the names of the roads the Ambulance needed to take (we were at the back part of the park and it isn't accessible by car from the front).
The second guy then approached us and one of the "nurses" loudly said to him, "did you hide our stuff?" and the second guy told her to "shut the fuck up." I rolled me eyes and reminded them we were on the phone with 911 and pointed at the guy lying on the road who was far less blue at this point.
Then I heard Mark yelling something at me so I jogged over to him to hear what he had to say.
When I got to him he said I should get the license plate number of the truck the four newcomers were in. He thought they were probably involved. I said I'd take a photo of it when they drove by me. Just then the ambulance started to approach us so I turned back to jog back to the "patient" and the other four people were already in their truck and the truck was driving away at a high speed down a side street.
By the time I got back to the guy he was on his back again and was looking a little bluer so I turned him on his side again and held his head and rubbed his chest a bit while the EMTs unloaded their ambulances and got their gloves on. Once the two real professionals were ready I got out of the way.
Along with the ambulance two police vehicles had arrived and the main officer on the scene tried to talk to the girl and she initially started lying to him about the heroin and how she hadn't seen anything. She was a mess though and the cop was understandably incredulous. She then changed her story a couple times before admitting that she saw him shoot up but had been unable to get him to stop (when I had heard her screaming at him she'd said, "Stop you fucking idiot!"
It turns out the girl had just come to the park with him after they had left her OB-GYN where she had finished an ultrasound.
The officer asked us who took the guy out of the truck and I admitted I had done so. He said, "thanks - you guys saved his life." Then he took my contact information and told us that he sees ten heroin cases a day in Huntington. After we were done he told us we could go so I looked back in on the guy - he was looking much better thanks to the EMTs pumping oxygen into him and after having given him an injection of something.
Then we played the rest of our round of Disc Golf.
NOTE: Honestly, if Gilbert and Mark hadn't turned around to help them in the first place I never would have noticed the guy was dying. Thankfully, both of them thought they might need help and were going to offer to call 911.