I went with a few of my friends to see the 8 o'clock showing of Couples Retreat at Bridgeport Village in Tigard. Upon arriving there, we discovered that it was sold out and the next showing was at 10:10. I was not particularly in the mood to wait that long, especially since I was supposed to work relatively early the next morning, but in the heat of the moment, when the admissions girl was glaring at me with impatience, I panicked and decided to just buy the ticket.
As I walked away from the ticket counter, immediately regretting my decision, I saw a 17 year old guy to my right, start to collapse on the ground right next to me. And by collapse, I mean he fell backwards and did not reach out to catch himself, so his head hit the pavement and made one of the worst sounds I've ever heard. It was apparent from the way he fell that this was not some drunken stumble, but a serious medical issue.
My two friends who majored in exercise science, plus the guy we were with, rushed forward and tried to help him up, but he started to collapse again and have a mini-seizure. They placed him on the ground and immediately called 911.
A small crowd, which consisted of another couple who saw him fall, the theater manager and a nurse that was in line, started to form around us. The guy was conscious, but disoriented and did not remember falling.
The nurse started asking him questions, what he ate that day, was he taking any antibiotics, did he partake in any illegal activities such as drugs or alcohol (to which he responded "not that day"). Finally, after being on hold with the 911 operators, two ambulances showed up and paramedics rushed over to take control of the situation (and surprisingly they actually did "rush." Any time I've seen paramedics they seem to be strolling and never in a hurry).
We eventually found out that his blood sugar was dangerously low due to a large amount of exercise that day with very little eating. They gave him powdered glucose and he started to feel better.
After making sure that he was taken care of, we decided to grab some happy hour grub at McCormick and Schmicks (none of us had eaten any dinner, and after witnessing that medical ordeal, we thought it was important to get some food in us). Two buckets of beer later, plus edamame for me, we headed back to the theater in much better spirits.
But alas, our happy spirits were not to last. First, we were kicked out of the theater because they had forgotten to clean it from the last showing (to which the drunk guy in our group insisted to the theater manager that we didn't need to leave because we saved the low blood sugar guy's life earlier). Then we filed back in, but the fire alarms went off, and they told us to leave again. Finally they went off and we sat back in our seats, but five minutes into the movie, the projectionist apparently bumped the projector and the movie image flew off the screen and landed crazily on the ceiling. After another two minutes, he managed to get it back on the screen where it belonged.
It was very stressful, and I'm not sure the movie was worth it in the long run. But, hey, it was a good story...
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