After the accident things were great, the best they had ever been.
Laura and I were in a great place, spending lots of quality time together. We got on with our renovation project. There was no pressure about getting pregnant. Most importantly we were spending most of our time together alone, and enjoying it.
We ate out a lot and even managed some great weekend breaks. I would drive/fly back as much as I could during the week.
Life for Mark on the other hand was, by all accounts, pretty grim.
He eventually told me that he had been seeing a girl, but that it hadn’t worked out. He seemed to be more upset by this than by the break-up of his marriage and was dealing with it by throwing himself into a number of new hobbies. This was always his way.
I watched him take up Photography and Mountain Biking. I even decided to play matchmaker and set him up with a couple of girls I knew through work.
To be brutally honest, he was awful to them. He seemed to go on a late rebound sex drive. I was getting concerned.
Laura told me not to worry about him, until we heard that Nicky had moved in with someone new. The worst part being that her new guy was someone I had introduced to both Mark & Nicky a few months before their wedding.
I decided to arrange a couple of treats for Mark.
Firstly, I had flown back from China
I then arranged a weekend biking for Mark and myself, meeting up with a couple of other guys on the trail.
Mark decided to get me fit for the trip in the coming weeks. We went out on a number of long, but flat rides.
It was strange as he hardly spoke whilst we were out on the bikes.
In the meantime, I got headhunted by a European Manufacturer I respected. They were prepared to pay a lot to get me on their books and set up a UK
I decided to make our Biking weekend one to remember, a great bash for the boys before I started in my new job. So I hired a couple of Crew Cab pickups and a log cabin in the forest.
The first night was fun a couple of beers, good food and tall tales. Mark regaling stories from his latest conquests.
Mark carried on drinking and hit the depressed drunk stage quickly. He stormed off into the forest and I followed. It turned out his anger was directed to me. How come I had managed to pull my marriage back and he had ended up alone? I tried to talk it through with him, but he didn’t want to know. So I left him to drink his beer on the patio outside the cabin.
I phoned Laura, who was out partying with the girls. She was a little concerned about Mark, telling me to let him cool off and to keep my distance.
The next morning, all was fine again. We hit the trail on the bikes and soon met up with our party.
It was very evident that Mountain Biking was not my forte, but I was enjoying it all the same. That afternoon we hit a more popular trail, giving me the chance to keep up with Mark and the faster guys.
I remember riding down a gravel track around a hillside. A sharp slope downwards to our left and a wall of soil and gravel to our right.
A couple of older guys sped through the middle of our group, which egged us all on….for about 2 minutes, until we felt the warmth of the sun on our faces.
Our group came around a bend and I saw one of the guys who had just shot past us, up in front on his own. We were gaining on him fast and I could see he was having difficulties.
As we got closer, he hit the deck hard. He rolled a short distance off the track down the slope. We picked up our speed and ditched our bikes.
As I reached the cyclist I could see he was lying on his back. The others stopped and seemed to let me take charge. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew something had to be done.
He was grey, dripping in sweat and had been sick. I was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing and he didn’t seem to have any injuries other than the odd graze from coming off his bike.
One of the guys tried to phone 999, but none of us had a signal. I sent two of the guys to park entrance via the shortest route and told them to phone 999 and wait for the ambulance.
I wiped the remaining spittle and vomit from his mouth and checked his airway. Then I started CPR. It had been a long time since I had learned about it. I told the others to watch as I would need them to do it too, when I tired. I noticed Mark sat on the edge of the track, above us. He was hugging his knees into his chest.
By the time the crew arrived, we all knew his fate. It seemed as though we had been trying, in vain, for an absolute age. The reality was that he had been down about 20 minutes when the crew arrived. Their response was not at all bad, considering our location.
One paramedic took over CPR, whilst the other took history as best as we could give it. The Lifepak was attached but we were all just going through the motions. This was confirmed for me by one of the Paramedics using his radio to stand down additional response.
Mark was still sat in the same position, now smoking a rolled cigarette. He was staring into space as I walked up to him. “You alright mate?” I said as I approached. I got no response.
It was at this point that the cyclist’s group arrived. They had decided to turn back and find their lost rider.
We told them what we had seen, what we had done, and we stood with them and looked down at his lifeless body. His lycra top cut away, the pads stuck to his torso.
“Who’s going to tell Steph?” I heard one say. “He’s only bloody 42” I heard another say.
The older paramedic tried to console them, telling them he was probably dead before he hit the floor. He continued to tell them that it looked like a massive cardiac event and that he wouldn’t have suffered.
Details exchanged, we slowly made our way back to the trucks in total silence. The only time we were brought back to the reality of the situation was when we met up with a lone policeman in the car park. He was waiting for our accounts, before he made his way to the ‘deceased’.
It was at that precise moment that I knew I had to learn more about what to do, should I ever come across the same thing again. It didn’t matter that the paramedics had told me that there was nothing that I could have done, I still felt like I had let him down. I felt like I had let myself down.
I sat on the tailgate of one of the trucks and smoked one of Mark’s hand rolled cigarettes, drinking water from a bottle. It was getting late and there were fewer people about. There was less noise and the sun was beginning to head towards the horizon.
The ambulance slowly passed us on its way out, the driver acknowledging me by tipping his head then raising his eyebrows.
The silence and the fading light made the whole scene eerie. This was the point that Mark came back to planet earth, just as I was beginning to feel that I had entered another world.
He started praising me and telling me that he could never be half the man that I was. How proud he was of his best mate. I sat quietly smoking, occasionally smiling….but mostly waiting for him to shut the hell up.
That moment had a massive impact on my life. I didn’t realise how much of an impact for a long time.
It sounds awful to say this but I am glad, in hindsight that I was there. It led me to training as a Community First Responder. It introduced me to pre-hospital emergency care, which has given me a life I did not expect. It gave me an interest….no more than an interest, a drive and focus which has been a support through all the rough times that lay ahead.
To be continued.
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