“CPR?! Does anybody know CPR?”
A figure in a duffle coat lay perfectly still on the underground platform. Uncertain people hovered.
A few metres behind that, Matt stood there, trying to remember…
He did know CPR! He’d passed the Bronze Medallion when he was 15. They’d done all the practice breaths and compressions on a rubber torso in groups of four in the concrete shed at Bungan Surf Club.
Matt’s group had failed the resuscitation bit three times and Pritcho — the computer studies teacher who supervised the year 9s — had yelled at them for mucking around. He told them that their negligence while on duty could cost them their lives, and then they wouldn’t all be fucken comedians, would they? Would they?
A few hours later, the woman from Surf Life Saving Australia came down the steep hill to Bungan Beach and watched Matt and his friends — on their fourth attempt — correctly clear the airways and do breaths and compressions on the torso. She was satisfied with their performance gave them an official pass for Section Two of the Bronze Medallion.
That afternoon there was a sausage sizzle out the front of the surf club. Matt had two sausage sandwiches and can of Coke. One of Pritcho’s local mates walked past with his longboard and chucked Pritcho a shaka. Pritcho offered him a sausage. He said thanks mate, but he was vego.
Pritcho yelled “Only eat pink meat, do ya mate?!” The computer studies teacher turned to Matt, laughing hysterically with his tongue out.1
Matt looked up. He’d forgotten CPR and now TfL had a corpse to deal with.
The story is fictional, but this bit did really happen. I’d never heard anyone say this before, and have never heard it since. I could take a good guess at exactly what the teacher meant by it, but we’ll never know for sure. Unlike the specifics of CPR, however, this moment has stayed with me.