By Ryusuke Yamauchi
The Daily Yomiuri
YOKOHAMA, Japan — In the Yokohama Marathon in November, Shigeo Yoshida saved the life of a male runner who suddenly squatted down and then collapsed unconscious by performing a heart massage and artificial respiration with six members of a volunteer rescue team that he organized for the marathon.
Yoshida, 50, participated in the marathon as a “rescue” runner.
It was the second time Yoshida saved a runner’s life, following a similar incident in the Tokyo Marathon in February in which he participated as an ordinary runner.
“The two people that had been saved recovered without any aftereffects. In my 10-year career as a paramedic, I had never experienced incidents like that,” he said.
He chose to be a firefighter because of the thrill he felt when he watched firefighters battle a blaze he happened to see when he was a junior at university.
Later, he was involved in establishing a training school for paramedics in Yokohama and decided to qualify as a paramedic as he realized the importance of the school’s role.
Yoshida now works as head of an emergency unit at Hodogaya Fire Station in Yokohama. “We can leave him in charge of any situation as he is always cool. He also takes good care of his men,” his superior says.
Yoshida is chairman of the city’s paramedics association. “You always have to think about what you must do in a limited time” is what he always says to the association’s 200 members because even a slight delay in treating patients could lead to their death.
For the Yokohama Marathon, Yoshida organized the volunteer rescue team with the association’s members. The rescue members were stationed along the marathon course.
After the Tokyo Marathon, the man Yoshida saved visited him at the fire station and expressed his gratitude to Yoshida again and again. Yoshida says he was moved to tears while embracing the man.
Yoshida now thinks being a paramedic is his life’s work. “The more I turn out for emergencies, the more strongly I feel this responsibility. My mission is to pass on my experience, which I regard as a God-given gift, to the younger generation.”