A second chance to realize the importance of first aid

My wife shouted my name and pointed at the boy flailing in — and increasingly under — the water beneath the waterfall in Laos.

I immediately understood and swam over to him.

It was too deep for me to touch the bottom, but I was still able to hoist him above the surface. My wife left our 3-year-old in the shallows near the bank and also helped lift and steer the child, who seemed to be around 6 years old, onto the shore. His face was twisted in fear. He was sputtering and bawling, but managed to choke out a few words.

That’s when we realized he was Chinese.

His family had apparently also used the Spring Festival holiday to travel to Luang Prabang.

So, we started comforting him in his mother tongue and scanning the area for his parents.

I never saw them.

But, soon, his elder brother, who seemed around 10, arrived at the scene.

Big bro seemed unfazed.

His younger sibling was still too shaken up to explain what had happened.

We waited with them for some time until the boy had calmed down.

We asked him where his parents were. He pointed to the crowded shore.

Eventually, we gave up searching for them.

We agreed it was extremely unlikely the little guy would attempt another swim, either way.

But we kept an eye on him, nonetheless.

It wasn’t until later that evening that the gravity of what had happened set in.

Among many thoughts came a realization I’d had before but had failed to act upon — I need to learn first aid.

My wife — who’d worked as a lifeguard in high school and college, which is likely why she noticed the drowning boy when nobody else did — agreed to teach me.

It was the second time in recent years it may have proved useful.

My father and I watched a man die on a train from Jiangsu province’s Wuxi to Beijing.

He suddenly tumbled from his seat, convulsed in the aisle and then stopped moving at all.

I remember people yelling, asking if anyone knew first aid.

A call went over the speakers, asking if any medical professionals were aboard — something I’d previously believed to merely be a Hollywood trope.

And eventually, someone trained in lifesaving techniques arrived from another car.

The man seemed to have passed away quite some time before we arrived at the next station, where emergency responders whisked him off on a stretcher.

I sometimes wonder if things may have been different if someone were able to respond sooner. Someone in his car. Someone like me.

I resolved to learn first aid that day. And then I never did.

It takes about four hours to complete the training.

But as the incident at the waterfall, on the train and other places show — my wife and I saw a motorcyclist get hit by a car in Shandong province and a man have a fatal heart attack during a canopy walk in Malaysia — life can change and even end in seconds.

And as I’ve learned from our own family’s health emergencies, snarled traffic in such cities as Beijing can mean it takes first responders quite some time to arrive on the scene and long rides to hospitals.

The boy at the waterfall didn’t need first aid — just rescue.

But it was my wife’s training that made that possible.

If he had needed first aid, she would have been able to deliver it. But I wouldn’t.

And anything can happen — at any time. And sometimes, some things are a matter of life and death.