I went and chilled on the rooftop yesterday and sat by straddling the raised ledge. In my mind, I was firmly and safely seated and any choice to put myself at risk was entirely a problem of my own. One of the ladies in the neighboring complex soon began hollering at me. And like ants crawling out of the woodwork, within minutes, the entire household had come out to join her observations. They were making frantic motions for me to remove myself from the ledge for fear of falling. Passers-by on the road below began to gather to look up as well. They began hollering across fences and through doors and soon more and more people were gathering. I was amazed to see how many people had been tucked away as they emerged from wherever, and the funny thing is, even though I couldn’t see them, everyone knew where everyone else was and knew exactly where to holler to beckon them.
In an attempt to quell concerns, I hollered that I was fine! I was ok! No problems! Eventually, I swung my exterior leg back over so that I was still sitting on the ledge but facing inwards. This didn’t seem to help much, but after a few minutes the crowd seemed to give up and dissipated.
Except for the lady who had first seen me.
For some time she continued to stand there and watch me, frozen with her arms crossed. I began to wonder if she somehow felt it was her responsibility to watch out for me since I had apparently lost the ability to assume responsibility for myself and make safe decisions. It was this that finally brought me down from the ledge.
So glad that one lady led the entire neighborhood in concern for our precious Cortney! Stay away from ledges! BYU sent a group of nursing students to Tonga right before Kait went. The director (a woman in her 40's) fell of a cliff and despite her husband's desperate efforts to save her was crushed on the rocks and died. You can imagine the heart break.
ReplyDeleteKait's group had an emergency meeting. The message- stay away from cliffs (or ledges or anything else you can fall off of)