Occupying a shaded bench in the southeast corner of Mills Park, late last Saturday afternoon, the first good-weather weekend of this blistering summer, I found myself in the company of many. Everyone, it seemed, was out and about, sidling down sidewalks, peopling the parks — as if it were the first balmy weekend following a hard winter. We’ve been stuck under a dome of heat, humidity and wildfire haze for most of June and July. On this first Saturday of August, the haze still hung heavy, but the heat and humidity had blessedly dissipated.
Mills Park is one of the best places in Oak Park to unwind, relax, let your dog chase a ball, spread a blanket, practice Tai Chi, and generally disengage from the stressors of one supremely stressed-out society.
But I came there to work, notebook in hand, writing about my grandsons, always a labor of love. I wasn’t paying much attention to the setting, as pleasant as Pleasant Home just off Pleasant Street can be.
A young couple arrived with two helmeted daughters, settled in on a nearby bench and commenced a lesson in riding a bike without training wheels, dad hovering and instructing while mom insistently reminded: “Keep pedaling, keep pedaling, keep pedaling …”
But that was all background to my task at hand. Nothing could dislodge my concentration, not even the black-vested police officer, who walked past in the direction of the circular bench collaring a yellow poplar tree where the paved walkways meet in the center of the park.
Even that didn’t pique my interest until I heard a voice of authority ring out: “Sir, wake up! Sir, wake UP! Sir, WAKE UP!” Three officers were bent over a prostrate figure, trying to rouse him — unsuccessfully. They administered a dose of Narcan, which didn’t get results, so one of the officers went back to the cruiser and got another.
This time it worked, just as the ambulance and firetruck, sirens blaring, announced their arrival. By the time the gurney rolled past us, the overdose victim was on his feet looking dazed and disoriented as the paramedics directed him lie down on it.
An older man who was watching asked if he could share my bench. He said the young man, who appeared to be in his 20s, maybe 30s, was with two others, but when he laid down to “take a nap,” they left him behind.
As the paramedics wheeled the man to the ambulance, he crossed his arms, covering his face — a gesture perhaps of embarrassment, shame, despair? A moment of personal reckoning?
A middle-aged woman in a motorized wheelchair and her father positioned themselves on the grass nearby. She was the one who called this in. The leader of the responding police detail stopped to talk to her on his way out. He confirmed that her call likely saved the man’s life, and he wrote something on his pad. Her contact info so the department or the village could issue a notice of commendation? She deserves at least that much.
After he left, my benchmate and I issued our own commendations.
She shrugged and quipped, “All in a day’s work.”
But of course it was more than that.
She said she noticed the man’s head hanging off the edge of the bench and his arm awkwardly draped groundward. She knew he wasn’t asleep. He was unconscious. So she got involved. She made the call.
We overuse the term “heroic,” but “good citizen” gets short-changed. Good citizenship stands out in a country where millions of unconscious citizens don’t even bother to vote. Good citizens should never be taken for granted.
Her name is Kelly. She lives nearby and visits the park regularly, luckily for this young man. Did she save his life, we wondered aloud, or merely prolong it until the next overdose? At the very least, I said, she gave him a chance. That’s all anyone can do. Some skeptics might say it won’t do any good, but this looked to me like a 50/50 proposition. Maybe he’ll come down on the right side of those odds.
We’ll never know what troubles brought him to this juncture, but saving him was worth a shot — or two doses of Narcan at any rate — just to give him that chance. Will the authorities or the hospital social worker or the chaplain get through to him, maybe connect him to resources that will help him turn his life around? Will anything good come of that life? Did Kelly’s good deed, in other words, do any good?
Maybe, maybe not, but it did me good to see our social net function so ably on a beautiful summer afternoon in early August. Public safety personnel barely ruffled the peace and quiet of the place, which quickly returned.
Before she left, Kelly mentioned that her daughter is going away to college in a few weeks. I’m guessing this gave her socially responsible act special meaning.
Whatever the future holds, on this day one troubled young man got his life back.
Because one good citizen showed up.