I work out each morning (okay, I try to work out each morning) at the Wellness Center affiliated with the large hospital in my area. The center is on the hospital grounds and above the center are offices and labs. The center itself is broken into two parts. The first part is the wellness portion which takes up more than half the room and the second part is cardio rehabilitation. The two are divided for the most part by a wall partition but joined together by the track that circles the entire room.
Because I go to work out the same time each morning I have gotten to know, if only by sight, the people that work out at the same time I do. I don't recognize everyone, of course, but for the most part, I've seen these people at least once in my gym experience. There are always new people that appear, and when they continue coming each day they get added to that list of "gym people I know".
Today when I got to the gym a fire truck and an ambulance were parked at the front of the building. This isn't unusual as the center is tucked between a live-in rehab facility and the hospital. A woman on a stretcher was being loaded into the ambulance, and I said a little prayer as I walked by and into the center. Something along the lines of, "This could be me. Thank god I'm here today to work out, but it doesn't really matter because in the end, it can happen to anyone of us."
After my hour and a half of cardio, I went over to the weight machines and began huffing and puffing through my arm routine. This involves working my abs first and then moving down the line, along the track, working on each arm machine. After the arm machines, I do the leg machines, but I by-passed them and turned the corner to get to the last three arm machines. This position at these machines puts me looking out into the fitness room instead of looking out the back window as the first few machines do.
As I sat down and began puffing through this hideous machine I noticed that a woman was lying face up on the floor next to a bike. These are racing bikes that I try to avoid because there is no back on the seat and you are supposed to lean forward in a crouch to reach the handles. I only use these bikes when my cushy ones are occupied. There are three bikes in a row. The woman was at the end of the bike row. One of the nurses from the cardio rehab was on her knees taking the fallen woman's blood pressure on the woman's left side, and one of the fitness trainers was on the woman's right side talking to her. Two men were standing at her feet staring down at her.
I was surprised that I had not noticed this or heard any commotion about this, but then I realized that the machines I had been working on were facing the opposite direction. The thing that really got to me was the fact that no one appeared too interested in what was happening on the floor of the gym. The thing that REALLY got to me was another woman on the same row of bikes. She was sitting up nice and tall, riding away, her face staring up at the line of televisions above her as if nothing else was going on. As if there was not a woman lying next to her on the floor obviously in some sort of distress.
This is the same gym where I worked out next to Barack Obama during his campaign run for the presidency. The one question people asked me when they heard this was what I said to him. I tried to explain that no one bothered him while he was in the center. It was only when he exited the center that people approached him. As long as he was inside the fitness center doors he was safe from intrusion. I thought it was because he was there to work-out and people respected that. Now I'm not so sure.
Last week the fire alarm in the building went off. The doors automatically closed and lights began flashing and the alarm siren went off. Not one of us moved toward the exit leading outside. No one really even looked around, although my friend and I sniffed the air to see if we smelled smoke.
Now here I was watching this woman on the bike oblivious to the woman on the floor right next to her. This scene never changed through two sets each on the next three machines. I moved to the other side of the track to stretch out my hamstrings and quads and heard and saw the fire truck barreling down the street. A few seconds later the ambulance followed. A minute later the paramedics arrived inside the center and knelt down next to the woman.
The woman on the bike continued to ride, never once moving her head from the row of televisions above her. At some point, one of the fitness attendants spoke to her and asked her to get off the bike so that he could move the bikes to allow more room for the paramedics and eventually the stretcher. The woman got off of the bike, helped the attendant move the bike forward a few feet, and then, then SHE GOT BACK ON THE BIKE AND STARTED RIDING!
At that point I just laughed out loud. I walked around the track and spotted a group of my little elder lady friends chattering about the scene playing out a few feet away. I leaned into the group and spouted out some wisdom, "It could be anyone of us on that floor, but I certainly hope that we would get off the bike and show some respect."
I said good-bye, retrieved my keys, dumped my sweaty towel and exited the center walking past a fire truck and an ambulance just as I did on my way into the center earlier that morning. What a morning!
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