A week after Christopher Holton got a clean bill of health from his doctor at his annual physical, he set out for his daily walk on a wooded trail near home.
Holton, a 52-year-old former youth football league coach and multiple-mile-a-day walker, meandered along the paved trail in Mechanicsville, Maryland, that’s popular with runners and cyclists. Most days he walks with friends. That Saturday last August, his buddies were busy.
Holton powered along the path at his usual brisk pace, then started walking back to his car. He’d parked it at a nearby senior center.
Bryan Buckley also was out that morning cycling the trail for the first time with his friend Isang Isang. As Buckley pedaled along the path, Isang saw a man up ahead wobble, then collapse. It was Holton.
“We sped up and jumped off our bikes,” says Buckley, a public health researcher with emergency training from his days as a lifeguard.
Buckley rubbed Holton’s back. He didn’t respond. He was bleeding from the lip, and his hand was shaking. Buckley told Isang to call 911.
As they waited for the ambulance to arrive, Holton started gasping for air and his eyes began to glaze over.
“Then there’s this moment where he gives one really big gasp,” Buckley shares. “It looked like his last one.”
Buckley already had been monitoring Holton’s pulse by keeping a finger on his wrist. At this point, it faded. Buckley started the stopwatch function on his smartwatch, then began giving chest compressions. The timer was important because once paramedics arrived, he could tell them how long he’d been at it.
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It takes a village
Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered, including a woman who said she knew CPR. Buckley asked her to