The one time I administered CPR both victims of the accident I stopped at died. In retrospect they were already goners (both ejected from the car) and I didn’t

The one time I administered CPR both victims of the accident I stopped at died. In retrospect they were already goners (both ejected from the car) and I didn’t know what I was doing - hell none of us really did, but we tried. It was objectively one of the most traumatic experiences of my life and I used to dream about those people’s faces for a long time - indeed I can still see them if I try. Regardless, we tried and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We tried. I wrote a poem about it a few years ago: Violence Do you people know what it looks like when a man dies? What you think his fucking soul flies? As he serenely and comfortably lies, And he flutters his contented eyes? Not at all - there’s blood and pain, And vomit in his mouth, and foul brutal smells of bile and shit, and his eyes look crazy and wild, as you pound on his chest to exhaustion, “Scoop out the mouth - take those kids out of here, somebody fucking call 911!” <ah ah ah ah stayin’ alive stayin’ alive> <ah ah ah ah stayin’ alive stayin’ alive> They don’t tell you CPR never works, Or how the body jerks, Then the EMT smirks, “I can’t zap him again, but dudes dead.” So it was done, and I drove my truck to the truck stop to buy gas and clean the blood from my hands and jacket and reconcile with the two ghosts that had crawled into my head.