Call DR! ABC stat!

It's pretty much how I always imagined the scenario would happen. I'd be standing there shirtless, bikini clad women would be standing around me and someone would be down on the ground in need of help. And that's exactly what happened on Friday night to me and a couple of my medical colleagues.

After a late night swim we were on the hunt for food at Brighton. Just as me and a colleague were crossing the road someone riding along the footpath at a rather sedate speed slammed down on to the ground. Ominously there wasn't any noise from the fallen rider. So we wandered over to the young girl who had come off her bike. Her riding partner had pulled up just in front and was standing idly waiting for her to wake up from her awkward face down position.

And that's when my heart started racing. Unable to rouse the girl, my colleague began calling an ambulance. I put my hand in front of her mouth, but couldn't feel her breathing. 'Crap!' (or similar) I thought to myself. I rolled her on to her back and slipped off her helmet. Checking again, I still couldn't feel her breathing on my face. So I did a jaw thrust and much to my relief she inhaled and started softly blowing moist warm air on to my cheek. My third colleague rocked up, and a surf-life saver who had sprinted off during the previous moments arrived with a bag of resus goodies and oxygen. So we put her on some oxygen and sized her up for an OPA (as I was still holding her airway open) but she fortunately went to a higher level of consciousness (or something) because she took control of her own breathing.

Although I know it was extremely unlikely that their heart would have stopped, I was just so happy not to have to move on to the next letters in the basic life support algorithm. I've never actually done compression on a real person, and I still live morbidly in fear of breaking my first ribs.

As she was now more stable we put her in the recovery position and a few minutes later the ambos rocked up. Much like the scenarios they put you in at uni, you hand over the case and things very quickly are no longer your responsibility. Except this time there were throngs of people standing around watching, attracted by the flashing lights.

Like all things in life, once you've done it a few times it will be less exciting. If this happened to me as a veteran doctor I wouldnt be fussed. But this was the first time I've ever been called on to help a fellow human in a real emergency situation. It was a super adrenaline rush and it was a fascinating insight in to my mind and panic response. It took me a few seconds to become composed enough to act at the start, but amazingly, I think the deep-end scenarios they throw you in at uni had paid off. I hardly wasted any time in getting to the airway checking and didn't umm and arr about whether an ambulance should be called. Finally! I'm decisive under pressure!

Just as they were rolling her in to the ambulance she started coming to, so I'm chalking that up as a win to the posse. I'm glad I didn't have to do that one on my own!