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Oh SHIT –
“CALL 911!” I screamed out the door, and then rushed over to the bed. I didn’t know what to do, so I did the first thing that came to mind: turn her over and try to get the gunk out of her mouth.
I grabbed her right arm and heaved and strained. Ninety-eight pounds might not seem like a lot, but when it’s limp, dead weight you’re trying to move, it’s tough. I finally rolled her onto her side, and a torrent of liquid came rushing out of her mouth. I got her on the edge of the bed, her head lolling off, and more liquid drained out.
Some dude I’d never seen appeared at the door. “What’s wro– oh shit,” he gasped.
“CALL 911!” I screamed again, and he bolted.
I turned Riley back over and held my ear down to her mouth.
She wasn’t breathing.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” I wailed.
I’d never done CPR before – and I
really
didn’t want to touch my mouth to a bunch of sour-tasting, vomity gunk, even if it
was
mostly liquid – but fuck it.
Riley’s life was on the line.
I leaned over, pinched her nose, and exhaled into her mouth.
Then I got up, cupped my hands over her chest, and pumped down hard and fast over her heart.
ONE… TWO… THREE.
Then I pinched her nose and exhaled again.
I found out later that you’re not even supposed to do the breathing part into their mouths anymore, that they just say to pump the heart and that’s it.
But hell, I was drunk and my entire CPR training came from television and action movies, so I think I did a pretty good job considering.
Especially when she came to twenty seconds later.
She coughed and hacked and vomited again – luckily when I was thumping her chest and not giving her mouth-to-mouth. By that point there were heavy footsteps thundering up the stairs, and Ryan burst into the room.
“Kaitlyn – what – ”
“Call 911!” I cried as Riley gagged and coughed on the bed.
“Somebody’s doing it right now – Jesus, Riley, are you – holy shit,” he said, and helped pull her over to the side of the bed so she could vomit again, while I sobbed in the corner.
99
It was a long night.
The paramedics showed up and hauled her off to the hospital in the back of the ambulance. They assured us that she would be okay, but that aspiration into the lungs might have occurred, and she could have some serious complications – like pneumonia.
Ryan, Killian, and I rushed to the hospital but weren’t allowed to see her. Somebody had notified Miles, and he was there within minutes – the first time I had ever seen him without a tie, though he still wore a crisp white dress shirt and a suit.
“What the fuck happened?” he raged.
“Riley threw up while she was asleep and almost died,” Ryan said. “Kaitlyn saved her life. She was the one who found her and gave her CPR.”
“Oh.” For the first time in his life, Miles was actually cordial to me. “Thank you.”
I just nodded. I was too exhausted to do anything else.
Derek walked in next, still wearing his jeans and t-shirt from the recording studio earlier that day. He looked deathly worried.
It was interesting – he didn’t go to Miles. He went directly to Ryan. At a moment like this, all the petty bullshit went by the wayside.
“Is she okay?” he asked, no hint of snark or anger in his voice, just concern.
Ryan nodded. “She’s fine, but they won’t let us see her yet.”
“I heard you saved her,” Derek said to me.
“I just found her.”
“She saved her,” Ryan insisted. “Riley’d be dead otherwise.”
Derek hugged me – not a romantic hug, but like friends comforting one another during a tragedy. “Thank you.”
I burst into tears. It was too much – all the stress from Riley’s near-death, and now this kindness, this
human touch from someone who had put me through so much, and for whom I still felt so deeply.
When Derek let go of me, I retreated to Ryan’s side. He held me, put an arm around me, comforted me.
Derek nodded to Ryan, who returned it… and then Derek walked over to talk to Miles.
Ryan called Riley’s sister Megan. Woke her up and explained the situation. She bordered on hysterical at first, then rapidly calmed down. Ryan told her to grab the next flight to Atlanta and not to worry, he’d pay for it. She said there was no need, Riley took good care of her, but she
could
use a ride from the airport. They worked out the details as she booked a flight online, and then he hung up.
“She’s catching a 6AM flight to Atlanta. I’ll pick her up at 8:30 and drive her back here.”
