I had a very sucky Monday, despite a foliage weekend, a great golf weekend and the Patriots winning Sunday night.
The back story. Nine years ago, while in a courthouse in Massachusetts I was unlucky enough to see a prisoner try to commit suicide by jumping from the third floor. Despite the "splat", he lived with 200 broken bones.
Yesterday, in the same court, I was schmoozing with a bunch of people, when a gut feeling made me turn, see an object falling at great speed and then a thud. Same guy. Jumped again. Different sound. Fourth floor this time. Dead.
To make matters worse, some asshole yelled "gun" and hundreds of people panicked on cue, jumping over judges' benches, infesting the clerk's offices and probation, trampling everything and everyone in sight. They closed the courthouse.
I cannot get the sight of the body falling, nor of people panicking and smashing each other out of the way out of my mind. Mondays suck.
Comments
last commentWow! Sorry to learn that happened to you. Sorry for the jumper, too.
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^ The story is BS. Everything but him having a fun weekend, that is.
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Most courthouses are designed to prevent exactly this kind of occurrence. The same guy? Twice? It strains credulity.
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^^ 100% fact. Look it up on the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.
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My Monday was pretty good, started with two scratch offs first paid me $100 second paid $50. The day got better from there, played golf and won $75 with a few buddies, Then we went to lunch and I used a rewards gift card to pick up the tab for all of us.Monday evening I played poker with a bunch of friends won $275. All in it was a winner for me.
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I stand corrected. A guy did jump from the fourth floor balcony to his death at the Worcester County Courthouse.
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Sorry for the trauma. I witnessed a jumper and I see it every time I drive by the building
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So sorry.
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Terrible. I remember a similar thing happened at the Hall of Justice in Trenton NJ, which was about 10 stories with a big atrium. Some guy getting deposed flung himself over the rail of the atrium from a top floor, gruesomely killing himself. Place was crowded at the time and many people witnessed it. Selfish final act to subject so many people to that. My company was going through regulatory stuff with the state and I was there all the time but luckily wasn’t there that day.
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Ugh, I'm sorry. I'm glad I've never seen a jumper actually jump. Saw one in the water once downtown. EMS got there just as I was walking by.
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Give the fucker credit. If at first you don't succeed...
(When Mondays suck, Tuesdays are for gallows humor)
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When I was in college at UMass a despondent student drew a red x on the sidewalk outside the library and then jumped off the 26th floor observation deck. Nothing quite says welcome to college on your second day there than seeing that. Note: He missed the x by 10 feet.
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We often overlook the impact (yes, bad choice of word) that witnessing traumatic events have on people. I am good friends with a family whose kid witnessed the school shootings at MSD in Parkland, FL when he was in the 10th grade. Poor kid has had a rough time since with PTSD, emotional issues, unsuccessful in college, can’t keep a job, etc.
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Ski, sorry you had to witness that. I was there about 2 months ago for jury duty, up on the 2nd floor. Unfortunately the entire atrium make this sort of action too easy.
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^The engineering firm fucked up and made the barriers too low. Curious if you got seated on a jury?
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Bummer. Sorry about that 😕.
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I always figured jumping would be the best or the worst way to go. It would be the best way because it would be an exhilarating, unfiltered, unrivalled rush. It would be the worst because you would have time to change your mind on the way down, but...
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Someone once said that 'people who commit suicide are optimists, they're trying to improve their situation'.
I don't exactly agree with that but I do see the point trying to be made.
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supposed to be at least 4' for a commercial/public building.
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Traumatic for sure. Awful.
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Really sorry you saw that, Ski.
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The Patriots lost that game due to a touchdown in the final seconds.
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^They beat Buffalo 23-20 Sunday night.
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Tsk tsk. I guess more workspaces should do lockdown and fire drills just like the k-12 schools do.
And wow, sorry you had to witness that. I remember once when I saw some man killed by a drunk driver in an suv die. My brain processed it in slow motion just like the movies portray scenes.
Thankfully you were okay ski and the panicked people didn’t do anything like accidentally run over somebody who tripped and fell until they were crushed to death or something (that happened during a Black Friday-sale for something like a tv or a shoe or something one year)
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^ I recall the black Friday incident. Amazing to me that people would harm another human being to save $250.00 on a t.v. The worst part about Monday is it brought back memories from 50 years ago; listening to the assholes in the crowd at Umass Amherst, chanting "jump, "jump", "jump", right up until David Harpin jumped from the observation deck of the tallest collegiate library in the world, to his death 27 stories below.
Then again as kids we went to Ashland State park beach one time for visitation, made friends with kids from another family, then watched with his kids as their dad gave one last shiver while the paramedics worked on his lifeless body; and then, from less than 10 feet watched away as he died.
On a weirder note, we had safety drills when I was in elementary school, but not for active shooters. As the siren sounded, we would cower under our desks as we waited for the nuclear warhead Russia had launched to strike, knowing that our sturdy wooden desk would protect us.
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^ I remember those nuc bomb drills. People think they were futile but they would save a lot of lives that would be lost due to blown-in windows/flying glass
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I'm too young for nuke war drills and too old for active shooter drills. We all just assumed, in the 80s, that we would all get vaporized by Soviet ICBMs. How many desks we hid under did not affect the calculus. We did have a lot of tornado drills, though.
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^ As a teen, I clearly remember a nightmare of a white ICBM flying up my street with CCCP on the side in large red letters. We had nuke drills in the hallway and would brace against the lockers like bracing your head in a plane. The alarm was different than a fire alarm, it was like a tornado alarm - this was in NY.
In high school, a very close friend hanged herself with a Venetian blind cord in a class room after school around 3PM. I saw her sister last weekend at my high school reunion.
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^^ I always wondered what the fuck hiding under that chair desk contraption we used to have to squat under would do to shield us against a nuclear attack. Then later we had to huddle down in the hall against the lockers in Jr. High School. What a pain those school drills were. Now it’s even worse my nieces and nephews have to deal with shooter drills.
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I was in a situation where I the "duck and cover" drills actually made sense. In high school, we were in the middle of a final exam when an earthquake hit. Everyone was under their desk in a second and stayed there while the earthquake created waves on the floor for what felt like 30 seconds. As we were under our desks, I saw a bookcase rocking back and forth right next to the teacher's lectern. I really thought it was going to fall on her.
The funniest part is how fast everyone reacted and got under their desk.
I was about to be the first one to turn in my exam when it hit. We all had to evacuate while the building was inspected, and we all shared answers to the test. Everyone aced that test.
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