After thirty compressions, Pia stopped. Quickly she pinched the man’s nose closed, fought successfully against her reluctance to seal her mouth over the victim’s, and forced her breath into the man. She saw that his chest rose appropriately. After two good breaths she returned to the chest compressions. Following thirty more, she broke off again to repeat the breathing. Before doing so, she quickly tried for a pulse at the man’s wrist. Unsuccessful at feeling a pulse, she pushed up the man’s sweatshirt sleeve on his right arm to check for a pulse in his ante cubicle fossa—his elbow. What she saw surprised her: the man was tattooed on his forearm with a series of numbers, reminding Pia of concentration camp victims of the Nazis. She tabled the thought and moved on quickly.

To her surprise, at the elbow she thought she felt a pulse. Encouraged, she then felt for the man’s carotid artery. Here there was a definite pulse! It was rapid and faint but definite, a good sign, provided the circulation was adequate to get oxygen to the brain. With her hand on his neck she noticed something else: the man’s skin seemed hot, but there was no perspiration on his forehead. The thought went through her mind that he might have been suffering from heat stroke despite the cool outdoor temperature.

Pia was confused by the conflicting range of symptoms. In addition to his problematic cardiac status, she saw what looked like urticaria, or hives, on his forearm. It was also apparent that he had vomited, because there was some vomitus on the ground next to him. And there was that foaming at the mouth she’d noticed initially. Pia worried that despite the thready pulse, the man might be about to die of shock, possibly septic shock, with his elevated temperature.

Pia again leaned over to recommence the breathing part of the CPR and suddenly felt resistance when she tried to blow into the man’s lungs. To her astonishment, the man spontaneously started breathing. He even coughed. Pia checked the pulse at the wrist. It was stronger. Then the man quickly woke up.

As if waking from a slumber, he gazed up at Pia with obvious surprise and gripped her by the arm, shaking her as if shocked she was there, and wanted to make sure she was real. He spoke quickly and excitedly in what Pia took to be Chinese. The man then pulled on Pia’s arm in an attempt to sit up, but only managed halfway before falling back. Pia was transfixed, as if she were confronting a ghost. It had been such a sharp recovery: one minute the man was dead, as far as she was able to determine; the next he was very much alive. His eyes were darting around. He seemed terrified.

“It’s all right,” Pia said, trying to calm him. She checked her watch, wondering just how long the man had been without breathing and heart action. She also worried when the EMTs would arrive, hoping they were close by.