A strange day

[Ianc2]

I managed to get a cheap, last minute deal to the Italian lakes. On the penultimate day we joined an excursion to Zermatt in Switzerland with the intention of looking at the mighty Matterhorn -a long held bucket list target. So over the Simplon pass we went 6578 feet, with a quick break to look at the snow covered mountains. Zermatt (5310) feet has a ban on cars and buses, so a funicular train up to the village itself has to be taken. In order to get a better view we hopped on another funicular to get a good view of the mountain.

the train ran up a tunnel of solid rock and at the end we emerged into an alpine café, with lunch being served, along with drinks, freshly cooked food and outstanding views bathed in bright sunshine. The air was a little bit thin (2002 metres)and one of our party turned around and went straight back down again. My heartbeat was behaving in it's usual regularly irregular manner - situation normal, so I had a wander round, found a table with a view and had a freshly cooked lunch. As usual my wife said she wasn't hungry and then pillaged mine.

All good things come to an end, back down to the village we went, bought some chocolate and then back on the train to drop down from Zermatt to the village below where the bus was parked.

As we gathered around the bus there was a sudden commotion. A man had collapsed. A defib machine was produced, an ambulance and police car arrived, followed by a fire engine and a helicopter with a doctor on board. All to no avail. We eventually boarded the bus and drove off into the night, contemplating our own mortality.

[Adaboo]

Oh that’s awful, happened to me in Spain at a big hotel that had live music on. We were all dancing outside and suddenly a man fell off his chair. I’m sure he was dead before he hit the ground. Myself ( I’m a firstaider) and 2 airline stewardess’s worked in him with cpr till the ambulance came, but he didn’t come back. Very upsetting as everyone saw.

Hope you still had a good trip though

[SpiritoftheFloyd]

It's sobering when something like that happens in front of you.

I was in Portugal many years ago. Staying in Lagos on the Algarve and sitting on the beach at Pria Rocha which is reached by a load of steps down to it, when a commotion started 20 metres along the beach, some man was clearly not well, a life guard ran over to this group of people and started giving CPR to the man, someone had run to one of the bars on the cliff above the beach (1980s prior to mobiles) and rang for the emergency services, someone else put some wind breaks around the man. After a while 2 medics came racing down the beach. After a while longer the urgency went out of the situation and it was clear that unfortunately there was nothing more they could do.

Found out a few days later he was a German tourist, aged 52, on holiday like the rest of us. Makes you realise how fragile your life is

[Lezzers]

That's so sad for all involved. I watched my husband go into cardiac arrest and helped do CPR on him, it it something you never forget. We were so very lucky for him to survive, out of hospital CA have such a low survival rate.