 | I have often heard or read of watching a person die and how everyone justifies it simply as a part of life. You think of all these heroic things that you might do. But in the end you are simply helpless, numb, and angry. My car sped over a hill towards town and I saw a crumpled figure...looking more like a wad of dirty laundry...next to a wrecked bicycle. I quickly pulled my car into a parking lot. I ran up to the crumpled figure to see what in the hell was going on. A person who was already at the scene ran and called 911 while another person stayed with the guy. I ran a few doors down to a neighbor who was trained in trauma. We ran back. She tried to administer CPR because by the time we had gotten back he was beginning to turn blue. He started breathing on his own. Then almost immediately his chest stopped rising and falling again...he turned blue, then ashen-white and then he simply died. I must have been two or three feet away. The paramedics arrived too late. The man "bought the farm." The paramedics said that there was nothing really anyone could do anyway.

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