I saved a man’s life, and I never saw him again. 10 years later, this is still the craziest thing that has ever happened to me.

In high school, I worked as a lifeguard at a country club for a few summers to earn some money. It was a cushy gig. It was for country club members only, so a large part of the job was learning people’s names and interacting with them. Mostly just saying “Good morning Mr. Gerrity!” and listening to some generic mumbling about millennials.

Well, over the fourth of July weekend, there were more people at the pool than usual–each member could sign in one guest–and there was a middle aged man jumping off the diving boards who I hadn’t seen before. He was over 6 feet, at least 230 pounds and was doing “gainers” off the low dive into the pool to make big splashes to impress his country club member friends.

Well, one particular jump he got a running start and slipped off the board at the very end. His momentum was already leaning backwards to do the jump and his body came off the board a few feet and his head rotated backwards and smacked right into the diving board. I can still hear that cracking sound in my mind.

I’m sitting 8 feet off the ground in the lifeguard chair at the diving well watching this all go down and I am praying that I don’t have to do anything, even though I knew shit was about to go down. I didn’t see any blood, which was a good sign, but as I watched his body sink down I counted “One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.” No movement. Fuck.

I blew three short tweets on the whistle, the cadence to signal to the other guards that I would need the neck board, and jumped in with my buoy making as little of an impact as possible in the water. My life guard training took over as I dove down 8 to 9 feet to grab this dude. He was out. Just making no movement whatsoever. Like I said, he was a big dude, but he wasn’t as heavy in the water as I grabbed him and kicked us both up to the surface. I hoisted him onto the buoy and swam over to the edge, where by now the other guards had stuck the board down into the water.

I lined up his limp body with the board as we all worked together to strap him into the board. The other guards pivoted the boards out of the water while I climbed out. I took a half second look around to a half dozen shocked faces and it became clear to me that this was my show. Great. Still obeying my adrenaline fueled rote memory of my training, I shouted for someone to call an ambulance as I made a decision.

See, I thought he probably had a next injury. The board he was strapped into is designed to not move his head, so he doesn’t further injure his neck or back. But he wasn’t visibly breathing so I had to save his life at whatever cost it took. Or at least that’s what my 16 year old brain decided. So I started chest compressions.

What they don’t tell you about chest compressions is that you are breaking shit. You can feel bones and cartilage cracking under your palms. It feels horrible. I still haven’t been able to shake that feeling. 1 round of 30 and then I did two breaths into his mouth–his head was already titled back a bit from being in the board so I didn’t have to move his neck. After two breaths, I went back to chest compressions, and after 5 or 6 a little water leaked out of his mouth, he coughed a few times, and the other guards picked up the board and whisked him away so fast I didn’t even know what happened.

I rolled over onto the concrete, a tinnitus like ringing in my head, my heart racing, just sitting there taking it in. I went into some trance as my teenage body struggled to deal with what just happened. Start to finish it probably only took about 6 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime of stress and nausea had built up in my body. I was walked over to the guard shack, dried off, and walked up to the country club’s nicer member buildings.

The manager, who was a friend’s dad and had gotten me the job, sat down with me as we talked about what happened. I gave him the basic details, signed some documents, and was sent home for the day. Like I said, I was in some kind of trance and was just operating on autopilot. I’m not sure how much sense I was making at the time, and it took me several hours to process what just happened.

I came back for my shift a few days later, and I was told by another lifeguard that the guy was okay. I was thanked profusely by the member who brought him as a guest, but I never saw that guy again. This was still the craziest thing that has ever happened. I’m glad my instincts took over and I remembered my training. I might not have done everything exactly right, but I tried my best and at the end of the day he lived through it. I hope that guy’s doing okay.