They pulled off her clothes and pumped her chest, put a tube in her airway and forced oxygen into her lungs, and tried to see if they could shock her heart back.

NEWYORKER: Letting Go

Reviving a drowning victim, for example, is rarely as easy as it looks on television, where a few chest compressions and some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation always seem to bring someone with waterlogged lungs and a stilled heart coughing and sputtering back to life.

NEWYORKER: The Checklist

Each time they see Magodonga beaten back -- beaten black and blue during one protest, only to get right back up and lead another -- singing freedom songs at the top of her lungs in full view of security forces -- the threat of a policeman's baton loses some of its power.

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