Page 95 of Absorbed

Melissa snapped to attention and turned toward the phone in the guard shack.

Stacey ran out of her Birkenstocks, stopping at the pool’s edge at the shallow end, and quickly glanced around the pool, getting her bearings.

The old lady was climbing out at the side ladder. The weathered old man was in the third lane in the deep end of the pool, holding onto the metal rung of the diving block with one hand. His back was turned to Stacey, but his other arm was wrapped around something.

No. Someone. Another swimmer? Is he hurt, too?

Mark entered the water in the deep end where Jessie floated and rushed the backboard to him. “Stacey! I need you.”

She dropped into the water at the shallow end and made her way to Mark’s side. By the time she got to them, Mark had Jessie face up, and was trying to maneuver the board under him. Blood was rushing from a gash on Jessie’s forehead and a split across the top of his nose.

Stacey grabbed the Velcro straps to help Mark attach Jessie to the backboard.

Gripping the handles of the backboard, they rushed to get the board with Jessie’s limp body to the edge of the pool in the shallow end.

Melissa was there, waiting.

Mark shouted, “Once he’s out, apply pressure to the wound on his head, without putting any on his neck. No pressure on his neck!”

Melissa grabbed a folded yellow striped towel from the deck. Flip-flops and keys fell out of the towel, and landed on the wet concrete.

Mark quickly jumped out of the pool and lifted the head of the backboard. Stacey positioned herself to push it from the water. The muscles in her arms and stomach burned as she tried to keep the board stable while lifting Jessie out.

“Are paramedics coming?” Mark asked, lowering the head of the board to the ground, and getting onto his knees beside Jessie.

“They’re on their way.” Melissa placed the towel on Jessie’s forehead and held it steady with both hands.

Stacey climbed out of the water and knelt opposite Mark.

Mark placed one hand over the other just above Jessie’s sternum. He locked his elbows and pushed down. Nothing. He pressed again, harder.

On the third chest compression, Jessie heaved and he coughed up water. Mark and Stacey tilted the board to the side to help Jessie clear the water out.

Jessie’s skin had paled. Eyes barely open, his face was covered in blood.

“He’s breathing. I’ve got this,” Mark said. “Go check on them.”

Stacey ran toward the two men on the other side of the pool.

The bald, elderly man held the other swimmer’s face out of the water in the crook of his arm.

Oh my God. NO! Is he…

The body was lifeless. The face was bloated, like an anchored buoy tethered to the body beneath. The eyes were open, unblinking. The lips, visibly blue.

Stacey recognized the drowned man as another regular lap swimmer. “Mark!” she yelled as she reached down and gripped under the bloated man’s armpit. The old man let go and moved aside. The blue, swollen face started slipping beneath the water again, and Stacey put a knee down to stop herself from being pulled down along with the dead weight.

Mark swam across the pool at lightning speed.

Within seconds, he was out of the pool at her side. Mark and Stacey each gripped the man’s wrists with both hands, trying to pull his bloated body onto the deck between the diving blocks. Stacey grunted as her lower back spasmed. The man’s body hung limp and heavy against the side of the pool gutter.

“You take under his arms,” Mark told Stacey. “And I’ll grab hold of his shorts. Pull back on the count of three. One, two, thre-uuuhhh.” Stacey and Mark muscled the body barely up, onto the edge of the deck. “Again. One, two, THREE!” They dragged him back further. Stacey lost her grip, and the man’s upper body and head landed with a thump by her feet.

Mark knelt in the deep puddle beside the motionless body. “I’ll give compressions. You check for pulse and breathing,” he told Stacey.

Stacey fell onto her knees beside him.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

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