drama in 3 parts - part 3
The alarm was still blaring.
The paramedics had arrived quickly and had our downstairs neighbour all wired up to a heart monitor.
He was still alive.
When the paramedics insisted on cutting off his jeans to look for damage he was conscious enough to protest.
I was utterly relieved that he was capable of speech.
The paramedics took him to hospital on a stretcher.
We watched the ambulance drive away.
As the ambulance disappeared out of sight, a very, very tall man, wearing thick rubber soled boots and overalls emerged from the darkness.
Someone had had the sense to phone the electricity board.
The extremely tall engineer put on a pair of industrial rubber gloves and a pair of safety goggles.
Effortlessly, apparently extending beyond his already remarkable height, he reached up to the remaining alarm and with a confident grip, dismantled it.
My ears stopped ringing several days later.
Thursday, 30 November 2006
Friday, 24 November 2006
drama in 3 parts - part 2
James located buckets and receptacles to contain the water coming through the ceiling.
‘Oh, no, you can’t switch the alarms OFF’ said my landlord at the end of the phone ‘You’ll just have to wait until they stop on their own.’
The ringing in my ears had subsided to a dull yet debilitating wah, wah, wah, wah. It was as if I could hear the blood pumping through my ears.
‘What should I do? What should I do?’ I asked in my headless chicken like state. Someone instructed me to find some ladders so we could unscrew the alarms. The neighbours, possibly suspicious of a late night disturbance and alarms blaring down the street, did not come to the door when I knocked in an attempt to borrow theirs.
However, all was not lost. James located two chairs, created a makeshift ladder out of them (with me clinging on, anchoring one to the other, fearing for his safety) and managed to unscrew 4 of the 5 offending alarms.
The remaining alarm, the one which was stemming some of the flow of the neglected bath, continued to screech, water pouring out through the vents designed to sense heat and smoke.
‘I’m not touching that one’ said James ‘not with the water coming through’.
He made his way back upstairs. I followed him, not wanting to be alone in the vicinity of my now very angry downstairs neighbour.
As we sat in the kitchen, assessing where we would spend the night (the remaining alarm annihilated any chance of sleep) and trying to locate more buckets to appease the situation we heard a BANG then another BANG along with the vibration of a load hitting the floor followed by an ARGH.
‘Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh noooooooooooooooooooooo’
Our downstairs neighbour had attempted the two chair ladder trick and tried to detach the wet alarm.
Now he was lying on the floor, electrocuted and it was all my fault.
James located buckets and receptacles to contain the water coming through the ceiling.
‘Oh, no, you can’t switch the alarms OFF’ said my landlord at the end of the phone ‘You’ll just have to wait until they stop on their own.’
The ringing in my ears had subsided to a dull yet debilitating wah, wah, wah, wah. It was as if I could hear the blood pumping through my ears.
‘What should I do? What should I do?’ I asked in my headless chicken like state. Someone instructed me to find some ladders so we could unscrew the alarms. The neighbours, possibly suspicious of a late night disturbance and alarms blaring down the street, did not come to the door when I knocked in an attempt to borrow theirs.
However, all was not lost. James located two chairs, created a makeshift ladder out of them (with me clinging on, anchoring one to the other, fearing for his safety) and managed to unscrew 4 of the 5 offending alarms.
The remaining alarm, the one which was stemming some of the flow of the neglected bath, continued to screech, water pouring out through the vents designed to sense heat and smoke.
‘I’m not touching that one’ said James ‘not with the water coming through’.
He made his way back upstairs. I followed him, not wanting to be alone in the vicinity of my now very angry downstairs neighbour.
As we sat in the kitchen, assessing where we would spend the night (the remaining alarm annihilated any chance of sleep) and trying to locate more buckets to appease the situation we heard a BANG then another BANG along with the vibration of a load hitting the floor followed by an ARGH.
‘Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh noooooooooooooooooooooo’
Our downstairs neighbour had attempted the two chair ladder trick and tried to detach the wet alarm.
Now he was lying on the floor, electrocuted and it was all my fault.
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
drama in 3 parts - part 1
James and I looked at each other intensely when we first heard the fire alarm blaring downstairs. We sniffed the air and looked round ourselves, trying to locate the offending fire and to assess if we needed to GET OUT of the building.
Within the same millisecond all four of the industrial strength ‘no one’s going to die from smoke inhalation if i've got anything to do with it’ alarms in our upstairs flat were screaming.
My eardrums began vibrating and everything went slow motion. I ran into the kitchen to check that I’d switched off the grill.
It was off.
Someone starting banging on the front door.
We heard :
‘mumble ou – mumble ou’ (which we assumed meant get out – get out) .
We looked at each other blankly and both ran around a bit, disorientated by the alarm.
We ran down to ground level and noticed that the front door was wide open and that the downstairs neighbour had vacated the building.
Still we could not locate any fire but it was clear that something was wrong.
After a further few moments of looking this way and that, James noticed the water. It was bucketing through my downstairs neighbour’s ceiling.
James practically flew up the stairs and turned the taps off on the bath that had been gently overflowing for some time.
The blood drained out of me, I had initiated a disaster and I didn’t have a clue how to fix it.
Within the same millisecond all four of the industrial strength ‘no one’s going to die from smoke inhalation if i've got anything to do with it’ alarms in our upstairs flat were screaming.
My eardrums began vibrating and everything went slow motion. I ran into the kitchen to check that I’d switched off the grill.
It was off.
Someone starting banging on the front door.
We heard :
‘mumble ou – mumble ou’ (which we assumed meant get out – get out) .
We looked at each other blankly and both ran around a bit, disorientated by the alarm.
We ran down to ground level and noticed that the front door was wide open and that the downstairs neighbour had vacated the building.
Still we could not locate any fire but it was clear that something was wrong.
After a further few moments of looking this way and that, James noticed the water. It was bucketing through my downstairs neighbour’s ceiling.
James practically flew up the stairs and turned the taps off on the bath that had been gently overflowing for some time.
The blood drained out of me, I had initiated a disaster and I didn’t have a clue how to fix it.
Thursday, 2 November 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
