As local as yokel news gets

The gym I go to has TV monitors on most of the equipment including bikes, treadmills, etc. I find this to be a good distraction as do most since these TVs are almost always in use (with headphones). I never know what to watch since the whole joint can see what you're viewing so god forbid I have on something inane like the View or Jerry Springer.. I have on occasion watched the Price is Right but mostly I watch the MLB network or a baseball game rerun.

On this day I switched over to our local news channel. This always seems to be channel 12 in most areas. My reason for tuning in was there was news that UN meeting attendee Moammar Gadhafi was preparing to camp out in his tent in a neighboring town to us (Bedford). I had heard something about this on a late night show and just assumed it was a joke. It was no joke and I assumed this would be the lead story - it wasn't.

They went to commercial and their teaser was about a man who had heart attack while working out at a local health club. I sat through the commercial figuring this victim was in one of 100 health clubs in the county and then the Gadhafi story would be on. They come out of commercial and they show this guy's picture and I recognize him since he's on the same schedule as me. I didn't know his name but they did say it was our local gym where this guy went down and turned blue. The story (the HOOK) was that there was a nurse on a treadmill nearby who ran to assist and started CPR. She got him breathing again and EMS was on the scene shortly. The film in the news story had the guy, the nurse and a number of gym employees around in the hospital celebrating the good fortune.

Now remember I had my TV on this local channel (12) and apparently nobody else did. It caught some employee's eye (a trainer) and she and a few others stood around looking at this report over my shoulder. I had headphones on but I could hear them discussing and I assume they hadn't seen the report.

Coincidentally, (my HOOK) I had just started my pulse monitoring which is available on the bike I was on. I had been working hard for 23 minutes and I thought my pulse would have been in the 100s. It was 78 and I wonder if the trainers noticed - probably not. I guess I have to figure a way to get that heart rate up without turning blue and winding up on Channel 12.