Tales from the Stairwell

I had the day off Monday, so I spent it as I usually do - over at my parent's house, doing laundry. I am not ashamed to admit that I frequently take advantage of the free washer/dryer and generally avoid the scariness of my apartment's basement. Why pay three dollars a load when you can get it for free? Anyway, so I come home from my parent's at about 4:45 pm, go into the vestibule to get the mail, and then see that there is a man with half of his butt hanging out, holding onto the railing and trying not to fall down the stairs.

Typically I would be eager to run ahead and assess such a person in need, but instead I groaned and momentarily considered going up the back stairs. The reason for this is because I know this guy. He's our downstairs neighbor who I have never seen sober, who Tim has had to help into his apartment before because the guy was too loaded to move. So I'm about 99 percent sure of what I'm about to find, and completely obligated to go find out.

So I get into our stairwell and he miraculously notices me. At this point, I have to physically catch him and lay him down at the bottom of the landing so he doesn't smack his head into the doorway. I try to help him up the stairs once, twice, three times, but he doesn't budge. His body is dead weight and he stares at me as if he doesn't know why his legs aren't moving. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I ask him if he's got any weakness, anything wrong with him, to which he replies, "No, I'm just a little smashed".

A "little"? Honey, you can't get your ass past the doorway, I think you're more than just a little smashed. The best part is that he has take-out with him (some of the fries have actually spilled out of the styrofoam container) so obviously he had to get somewhere, order food, pay for said food and get back into the building. It's not just like he wandered into the courtyard with a 144-pack. I wonder if he had some sort of magical anti-drunk potion that wore off just as he got to the inside stairs.

I get him into a sitting position and see if he can turn around and scoot up the stairs on his butt. He stares at me blankly for about thirty seconds, then takes this to mean "I should grab onto the railing and pull like hell". Miraculously, the railing doesn't break, but he decides that he needs me to push him. I try to pull him up with my hands for a good couple of minutes, but I'm working against the fact that he weighs at least 230 pounds, is not moving at all, and has the effects of gravity and about a liter of vodka working against him. I try to convince him to let me call an ambulance, but he tells me not to. He gets upset and tells me just to leave him there, so that's what I do for the moment.

I go back up to my apartment, where my cats are immediately puzzled by the smell of a distillery on my hands. I put my laundry basket aside and pick up my phone to call the landlord's office. I tell them what's going on and that I could really use some help, to which they respond "I'm not sure what we're going to do about that, but we'll call you back". I hang up the phone and I hear one of my other neighbors come in with her dog and start talking to him. It becomes clear that she's now trying to do the same thing I was a few minutes ago. After retrieving Moxy, who has of course, wander into our stairwell, I head back down to the party.

By pulling on him, and by my neighbor pushing on the drunk's butt, forcing him up the stairs (god bless her), we manage to get him into the front hall of his apartment. He's so "smashed" that he can't even make it more than a few inches in, and she has to physically move his foot so she can partially close the door. It's at this point that she mentions that she thinks she saw his head bleeding and wonders if we should go over his bleeding drunken head and call an ambulance.

I call the apartment office yet again, but since it's now after five, I have to call the emergency line, which of course, no one answers. I leave an extremely long-winded message and wait a few minutes for someone to call me back. Eventually my phone rings, and they tell me "well, there's really nothing we can do...go ahead and call 911".

So I do and I repeat my story for the second time. I learn that (1) the connection to 911 isn't always crystal clear; (2) my cell phone makes a fun noise when it calls 911; (3) after you've called 911 your phone goes into "emergency mode" and you have to exit out of it before you can do anything else with your phone. I go outside and wait for two police officers to show up (and it's comforting to know they showed up quickly, you know in case I ever fall down the stairs for non-drunk reasons). I tell them my story, let them in the building and go to my apartment in case the dude freaks the eff out (which I know I can outrun him, but still, I didn't want to see this guy again). The police officers were definitely familiar with him, remarking that "he may look different in the light, but we know him". So I listened from upstairs as they talked to him for a bit, and eventually heard them say "well, good luck buddy" and their cars left the premises.

I'm honestly curious as to what the police policy as well as a landlord's policy is when it comes to these issues. This guy smelled like his liver was shutting down, was possibly bleeding from the head and couldn't move anywhere. I know their hands are tied if an ambulance is refused, but still, it just seems wrong that there's not more that can be done. This clearly wasn't the first time, and I doubt it will be the last time. I may be selfish, but I really hope I'm not around when it happens again.