There is not a day that goes by where I do not have an image of August 9, 2006 flash before my eyes. I was on duty as Senior Lifeguard when word of a 911 emergency call came to me via the county radio. It was heart stopping when I leaned over the set of rocks and saw an elderly man who was dying bellowing me. He had slipped while gazing out upon the horizon and had a broken neck and a severe hemorrhage. It is the look that he gave me upon lowering next to him which I will never forget. I cannot explain the distinct fear of death in a man’s eyes, only that it transforms them into piercing needles. I was trying to control the bleeding and called for the backboard when the ambulance and later air transport took him away, never again to shrivel my spine.
It is not the fact that there was a major emergency within the park, nor the gore and blood of the incident, but simply the look in the man’s eyes as he looked into mine, searching for answers that I could not give him, that touches me so deeply. I have acquired since then a new sense of the fragility of human life, and that even when you are in the most beautiful places gazing out upon the horizon, life can slip from under you in a split second. Will I have cherished my life enough to go in peace?