Page 103 of Absorbed

Ms. Lopez made a note in the margin of her paper, then sighed. “Okay, back to the incident on July 20th. You left off when…” she dragged her finger up the page and tapped the spot with her pen. “…you got in the water and decided to respond to Jessie’s injuries first. What happened next?”

“I helped Mark get Jessie onto the backboard and out of the pool.”

“Can you tell me how exactly you went about back-boarding Mr. Thomas, please?”

Stacey pointed at her drawing while she explained. “By the time I got to Mark, Jessie was face up. I’m not sure how Mark flipped him, but he was getting the backboard under Jessie’s shoulders. I helped get the rest of Jessie’s body onto the board, and started strapping his ankles and arms in place while Mark secured his head.”

“What was Ms. Phillips doing?”

“After she called 9-1-1, Melissa came back to the side of the pool. Mark told her she needed to put pressure on Jessie’s head wound once we got him out of the water, so she grabbed a towel sitting on the deck nearby.”

“Was Mr. Thomas conscious?”

“Not at first. And he wasn’t breathing.” Stacey couldn’t remember anyone checking for Jessie’s pulse, or for breath, but decided not to mention it.“Mark started chest compressions. On the third one, Jessie coughed up the water in his lungs. Mark and I tilted the backboard so he could get the water out.”

“Approximately how long were you and Mr. Rosenthal backboarding and providing CPR for Mr. Thomas?” the lawyer asked.

“It wasn’t CPR,” Stacey said. “Just chest compressions. The backboarding took maybe thirty or forty-five seconds. By the time Jessie was out of the water and breathing again, maybe two minutes had passed.”

“And for the two minutes you, Mark and Melissa were attending to Jessie, and another swimmer was in the water, alone, attempting to help Mr. Henderson?”

“Like I said, it seemed like he was already dead. But as soon as I knew Jessie was breathing, I ran as fast as I could to see if there was any way to help Mr. Henderson.”

“How was Mr. Henderson taken out of the pool?”

“Well, we only have one backboard, and he didn’t appear to have any head or neck injuries, so Mark and I pulled him out under his arms.”

“You lifted him out together? How long did it take Mr. Rosenthal to arrive so you both could attend to Mr. Henderson?”

“He swam across, and arrived just after I did.”

“But Mr. Rosenthal had been out of the water attending to Mr. Thomas beside the shallow end of the pool, correct?”

“Yes,” Stacey said.

“How did Mr. Rosenthal swim across so quickly? Did he also dive across the shallow end?”

Stacey considered this.How did Mark get there so fast? He must have dived in too, right?“I didn’t see Mark dive, and Idon’t believe he would have, especially after what happened to Jessie.”

“I see.” Ms. Lopez scrutinized Stacey for a moment. “You said you and Mark ‘pulled’ Mr. Henderson from the water. My understanding is Mr. Henderson was a very large man. How were the two of you able to lift him safely out of the water on your own?”

Stacey remembered how the heft of the lifeless body kept sinking back toward the bottom of the pool. “It wasn’t easy. We had to brace ourselves with the diving blocks, and loop our arms under his, then slide him along the deck.”

“Do you believe this was the safest method for the protection of all those involved?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Stacey said, her voice small. She could hear the sound of the man’s head thumping on the deck in her mind. “He needed CPR if there was any chance of saving him. It was our best option at the time.”

“How long after Mr. Henderson was pulled from the water did it take before CPR was administered?”

“Mark began chest compressions immediately. I checked for a pulse and breathing. There were neither.”

“Was Mr. Henderson provided mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

“I attempted mouth-to-mouth after Mark did about fifteen compressions. No air would go in. I tried to clear his airway of any obstruction, then tried giving breath again, still with no success. Then Mark tried, and also could not get air into Mr. Henderson’s lungs. That’s why the paramedics intubated him.”

“In the interim, whenever breaths were unsuccessful–” Ms. Lopez said, but Stacey sternly cut her off.

“—Whenever a breath was not being administered, Mark was pumping Mr. Henderson’s chest. Hard. He never stopped,except when he tried to provide breath as well. Even after the paramedics arrived.”

---