Anyway, I thought about his studies (my studies) to become a dentist. He took lots of calculus (thank you Sir Issac Newton,) lots of geometry (thank you Euclid of Alexandria) and lots of Physiology (thank you Claude Bernard.) Time spent studying to perform the practice of dental surgery. More time spent in the library than in the Chapel. The reason I say this is because I have heard people say, "God moved his hands to perform that surgery or his life is in God's hands." I'm not saying God didn't have anything to do with it, but did he? Was it not Newton, Euclid and Bernard who made this counting possible? I know that the answer could easily be responded, "God helped them!" Or easily answered, "Man helped himself."
In the spring of 1980 I was on the Holy Family high school basketball team. Now before you get all excited about me being a high school athlete, let me explain. If you weren't good enough to play for your catholic high school (Mater Dei) you could join your local parish on their high school team. We had about eight teams in our league. We played one game a week and our best player was considered good enough to get chosen first at lunch time (the real basketball players like Steve Pniewski didn't understand why we wanted to get sweaty at lunch when we still had classes to go to in the afternoon.) Anyway, long story short I wasn't very good, but my team was in the league's final. My parents attended every game in the hopes to see me do something athletic that they could tell my grandfather in St. Louis (who would tell his neighbors that I was in the starting lineup for Notre Dame.) The coach told me that he wouldn't play me (17 year old junior), but instead play only the starters (one of them my 14 year old eighth grade 6 foot five brother Patrick) because he thought we had a chance to win. I couldn't argue with him, I was better at statistics than I was with free throws.
The score was 52-51 with eight seconds to go in the final quarter. I had not played one second, but I was excited to be part of such an exciting game. The gymnasium was filled with parishioners and parents. I looked over at the gray haired referee who was massaging his chest during the timeout, just as he fell down. He fell flat on his back, his arms and legs went limp and he wet himself. I didn't know what had happened, but the next object that entered my line of sight was my dad coming over and kneeling down next to the unconscious ref. He checked his vitals and began solo CPR. We watched for over twenty minutes as the professional responders were slow to arrive.
If you have ever taken a CPR course, you are well aware of the importance to keeping count. Back in the 80's it was important to compress a full inch, two inches above the solar plexus. A person performing this resuscitation would do 15 compressions followed by 2 breadths (this has since changed to a compression only regimen.) A large group of women in the gym began reciting the rosary. As time went on they got louder and louder (hoping that their prayers would save this man's life.) My father was doing his best to keep count so that he could save this man's life, but the louder they got the harder it was for him to do his job. Finally, he sat up and yelled, "God Dammit, I'm trying to count here!" He went back to counting, giving compressions and blowing air into the referee's mouth and lungs. The ladies went back to praying (just a little bit quieter.)
Help arrived in the form of the Westminster Fire department. They applied a defiberallator
machine to him and took him to the hospital. My dad's mouth was covered in blood ( the man's denture had broken when he fell and cut the inside of his mouth.) My dad never stopped giving life support even in such a situation that was not very appealing. His efforts kept that man alive, I have no doubt in my mind. I imagine that somewhere at sometime there was a person or is a person who is also reliving this story. That person may right now be telling their audience that it was the power of prayer that saved this man. I believe that it was Newton, Euclid or Bernard that heard my dad's prayers in his counting.
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