Karthik Venkat's Facebook update on how he helped save a life.
Yesterday while going back to home after work, a person who was walking in the opposite direction in a normal way, stopped for a moment and fell down completely flat on the road. He looked untidy and the first impression would be he was over drunk. Many ignored and walked. I was little confused. This was the first time something like this happened in front of me. I was not aware what to be done. I went near him and tried moving him, there was no response. His palms were closed tightly & tongue half folded. I started shouting and asking for help and ran to fetch some water. There are three more people who came nearby and started helping. One of them realized he was not drunk and he was having fits (epilepsy). People kept keys in this hands, couple of folks went rubbing his palms and legs. In a span of a 2 minutes after the continuous efforts by the samaritans out there he became normal. I tried calling 100, seeking for help. In the meantime, this person became conscious. He drank some water, rested for few mins and walked away. All this happened around 6pm in the evening in crowded area. I got a call back from police asking for the exact location to send medical help, but I explained things became normal. I learned two things - 1. We should be aware of quick and basic things to do during health emergencies before we get expert medical help. I had zero idea on how to react when a situation like that arrives. It should be included in our curriculum or we should be proactive and learn those things ourselves. 2. Never to ignore if you find someone unconscious. Most of the times we ignore people whom we find lying on the roads unconscious thinking they are drunk or let us just take care of our business. It just takes 1 call for the medical assistance to reach them (even if they are drunk). You just have to give the location. Let's be more empathetic towards people around us and help in whatever way we can. I've also decided to make an article on how to react during health emergencies and share, so that we are aware of things to do if such situation occurs in our daily routine.