Tom and I went to the Fiesta Bowl to cheer on Boise State. If you've been to a sporting event, especially football, you know how loud it can get in the stands. The University of Phoenix stadium where the Fiesta Bowl is held annually has a retractable roof and has a capacity of 63,400 screaming fans.
In the weeks leading up to the big day, I debated whether to wear my CI only, hearing aid only or both. At my monthly Cochlear America Community Event meeting (more on this topic in a future post) I asked for suggestions. Many of them said to wear only the implant because wearing both would distort the sounds and make it unnerving. Ultimately, I decided to wear both because I wanted to not stress about hearing Tom, vendors or other fans I may talk to before, during or after the game.
I did some research before we left for Arizona and found out the stadium offered ALDs (Assistive Listening Devices), open captioning on smart phones and on the big screens above the end zones. I chose to use the captioning on the big screens because I didn't want to hassle with looking at a small phone and possibly missing the action and ALDs don't work for me anymore. The captioning on the big screens ended up being perfect. The font was big enough I could read it easily and the captioning was surprisingly accurate. If you've ever watched TV with the closed-captioning on you know this is a small miracle.
We had amazing seats -- 2nd row right behind the BSU section, on the 40-yard line. The game got off to an exciting start when Jay Ajayi, BSU's running back, broke through and scored the first touchdown of the game. Everyone around us was on their feet screaming and cheering. Yes, it was extremely loud and I was contributing to the loudness as I yelled and high-fived Tom. The two men who sat to Tom's right were the only ones in our close proximity who were not BSU fans. They seemed to slink further in their seats.
Not long after we scored our first touchdown Chaz Anderson caught a pass for another touchdown. Once again, we were all on our feet screaming and high-fiving. During this time, the man sitting directly in front of me caught my eye. He was sitting down, leaning way back in his chair with his arms stretched in front of him and looking up toward Tom. I thought he was trying to talk to Tom so my attention went back to the field. But then my eyes looked down again and saw that the man was not talking to Tom. He was having a heart attack. About the same time I noticed it so did the man sitting next to him (found out later it was his son-in-law). I yelled out, "he's having a heart attack!" Then I instinctively grabbed my phone and dialed 911. Right after I initiated the call I thought, wait a minute...I'm not going to be able to hear this call. I thrust the phone in Tom's hands and said, "It's 911. I won't be able to hear." My attention went back to what was taking place in front of me. The man's daughter, who had been sitting two seats down, was standing in front of her dad talking to him. Amazingly, I could hear her clearly. She was telling her dad he would be okay, to hang in there, someone was coming to help him. I yelled to get the attention of the security guy who stood right below our section, the area between the seats and the BSU team. He looked right at me and I told him we had a medical emergency, we needed an ambulance. About this time a man wearing an old Arizona baseball hat appeared on the scene. He took the man's pulse and told the man's daughter he had a pulse. Then he gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. At this point I couldn't watch anymore. After what felt like way too long, a couple of EMTs appeared. By this time the man was sitting up. The daughter grabbed my hand and squeezed it, thanking me for helping. The EMTs gave the man oxygen and asked him and his daughter some questions and the next thing I knew they were all walking up the stairs. I was so relieved that the man would be okay.
That night when I was so wound up from everything that happened that I couldn't sleep, I lay in bed reflecting on the incident. During the panic before the EMTs arrived it felt as though the immediate area around me was in a bubble. Everything outside of the bubble froze, stopped in time. Somehow through the stress of the emergency I was able to zone in on what was being said. I don't know if I heard and understood everything clearly or if it was a combination of hearing and reading lips, but regardless, I didn't let my hearing loss get in the way. I jumped in and helped in whatever way I could without even giving it a second thought. While BSU and Arizona continued to battle it out on the field, an anonymous Arizona man saved the life of a BSU fan. At the end of the day it didn't matter what color we wore or with what side we held our allegiance. Compassion was color blind.
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