My vision blurred to black as if lights were dimming at a movie showing; my clenched palms were sweaty, I shivered and dripped with sweat simultaneously until boom: my consciousness was gone.
Once my eyes regained some focus they darted up to see emergency medical technicians hovering over me, taking out equipment to help nurse me back to health. Prior to this, when I woke up on that peaceful Saturday morning, the temperature was a just right combination of sunny with a light breeze. The colorful Vermont trees created a beautiful fall landscape across the campus. The normalization and tranquility of the day did not foreshadow the events that were about to come. If you have ever fainted before, you may be familiar with this feeling. Although fainting is not by any means the most dangerous medical emergency that can happen to a person, it is without a doubt a scary one.
Philip Bergeron / Graphic Design Editor
I know that personally, I can sense when this is about to happen, but I can’t react to it quickly enough to prevent it. It just comes over me and within seconds I’m on the ground unconscious. My point about telling this story of what happened to me this past weekend is not to receive any kind of sympathy, but rather I would like to say thank you. Moments before my head could have made fatal contact with the concrete floor, I was caught. Absolute strangers nearby dropped to their knees to assess the situation and do everything in their power to make sure I was okay.
Here I am, a random 20-year-old girl on a campus where I don’t even attend school and random strangers are expressing their genuine concern for my safety.
The argument I am trying to make here is that despite all the horrible, terrible people there are in the world, there are even more good people. I believe that in times of emergency, people’s true intentions are brought to the surface. To my pleasant surprise, I have realized over the course of my life that more times than not, people have good-hearted intentions. If it wasn’t for the people around me on that day, matters could have been much worse. Before the EMTs had arrived, people who witnessed me going down instantly diverted their attention, dropped what they were doing and tried to get me to regain consciousness.
Although I was unresponsive for some time, when I was finally able to open my eyes and make sense of what was happening, I saw the faces of so many concerned strangers. Who were these people? Why did they care about me? And that is when I realized — there is so much good in humanity. I think there are too many times in life where we assume the worst. We think that the world is a place where everyone is for him or herself. I have always been someone who tries to give people the benefit of the doubt.
There have been countless instances in my life where absolute strangers who know nothing about me or who I am have done a random act of kindness.
I have always been a believer in the notion that having good character is helping people who can do nothing for you. There was nothing I had to offer to those people who helped me on that day, yet that didn’t halt their decision to help me.
I understand that the medical officials who arrived are paid to come out here and help me, but their concern stretched beyond just simply doing their job. They sat with me long after the incident occurred just talking to me, supplying me with plenty of food and water, even when I was already under the supervision of others.
I could sense that this wasn’t only about some paycheck at the end of their week. They saw me as a human being who was in need of help and they didn’t want to leave me until they had truly done all that they could to make me feel better.
Sabrina Lapointe can be contacted at slapointe@keene-equinox.com