Saturday, October 30, 2004
Holy shit
So I was awoken maybe about an hour ago to the sound of glass breaking somewhere in my building, possibly down the hall or upstairs from me. This sound was followed by a repeated loud thud. Naturally, my paranoid mind (which is justifiably so, mind you, seeing as a guy I know was robbed at gunpoint last weekend not too far from here) assumed that the sound was from someone trying to kick a door down. I tried to tell myself that I was being silly (it was probably just some drunk person goofing around) and to go back to sleep, but the noise continued. About 10 minutes passed, during which I succeeded only in working myself into a Jodie-Foster-in-Panic-Room frenzy that made it impossible to sleep. I then realized I had two options: a) I could either go investigate myself, or b) I could call 911 and have them send the police over to investigate for me. Since option a) only served to increase the frenzy level, I opted for b).
Of course, as soon as I got off the phone with the 911 operator, the noise stopped. Great. Well, at least I hadn't given the cops my apartment number, so they wouldn't know that I was the paranoid nitwit who was wasting their time. After a few minutes spent calming myself down from the Panic Room frenzy, I got ready to go back to sleep. That's when I heard voices in the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of a walkie-talkie. I knew the police had arrived, and apparently, since they were actually talking to people, there was something worth investigating after all. So I did what any normal neighbor would do in this situation: I spied.
Peeking through the blinds of my front window (which conveniently overlooks the porch), I saw the officer leave the building and return with two college-aged people (who I assumed were residents of the building, although they didn't look all that familiar). He then went back outside and retrieved another college-aged girl. As they were walking back into the building, I heard the girl say to the officer, "He took..." I couldn't hear the rest of the sentence, but that's when I started to think that maybe this wasn't just a simple case of someone locking themselves out of the apartment with potatoes in the oven, and perhaps a case where my "paranoia" wasn't terribly unfounded.
This suspicion was confirmed soon enough when I heard sirens approaching. An ambulance and a fire truck pulled up behind the police car that was blocking the street, and I watched as two EMTs came into the building, one of them pulling on rubber gloves on the way. Crap. I've seen ER; I know they don't put the gloves on unless it's serious. A few minutes later, the EMTs left and went back to the ambulance to retrieve a gurney. Double crap. I began fervently praying that the next thing I saw wouldn't be someone in a body bag being carried out of the apartment.
Which, thankfully, it wasn't. The guy on the gurney didn't really appear to have anything wrong with him that would necessitate him being on the gurney. There was no blood at least, which was a relief. The officer and the girl I overheard him talking to earlier walked out of the building with the EMTs, and this time I overheard her say in a cheerful voice, "Well, at least nobody died!" Great. I'm still not sure exactly what happened (though I can certainly draw some vivid conclusions from the details provided), but...well, holy shit.
So I was awoken maybe about an hour ago to the sound of glass breaking somewhere in my building, possibly down the hall or upstairs from me. This sound was followed by a repeated loud thud. Naturally, my paranoid mind (which is justifiably so, mind you, seeing as a guy I know was robbed at gunpoint last weekend not too far from here) assumed that the sound was from someone trying to kick a door down. I tried to tell myself that I was being silly (it was probably just some drunk person goofing around) and to go back to sleep, but the noise continued. About 10 minutes passed, during which I succeeded only in working myself into a Jodie-Foster-in-Panic-Room frenzy that made it impossible to sleep. I then realized I had two options: a) I could either go investigate myself, or b) I could call 911 and have them send the police over to investigate for me. Since option a) only served to increase the frenzy level, I opted for b).
Of course, as soon as I got off the phone with the 911 operator, the noise stopped. Great. Well, at least I hadn't given the cops my apartment number, so they wouldn't know that I was the paranoid nitwit who was wasting their time. After a few minutes spent calming myself down from the Panic Room frenzy, I got ready to go back to sleep. That's when I heard voices in the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of a walkie-talkie. I knew the police had arrived, and apparently, since they were actually talking to people, there was something worth investigating after all. So I did what any normal neighbor would do in this situation: I spied.
Peeking through the blinds of my front window (which conveniently overlooks the porch), I saw the officer leave the building and return with two college-aged people (who I assumed were residents of the building, although they didn't look all that familiar). He then went back outside and retrieved another college-aged girl. As they were walking back into the building, I heard the girl say to the officer, "He took..." I couldn't hear the rest of the sentence, but that's when I started to think that maybe this wasn't just a simple case of someone locking themselves out of the apartment with potatoes in the oven, and perhaps a case where my "paranoia" wasn't terribly unfounded.
This suspicion was confirmed soon enough when I heard sirens approaching. An ambulance and a fire truck pulled up behind the police car that was blocking the street, and I watched as two EMTs came into the building, one of them pulling on rubber gloves on the way. Crap. I've seen ER; I know they don't put the gloves on unless it's serious. A few minutes later, the EMTs left and went back to the ambulance to retrieve a gurney. Double crap. I began fervently praying that the next thing I saw wouldn't be someone in a body bag being carried out of the apartment.
Which, thankfully, it wasn't. The guy on the gurney didn't really appear to have anything wrong with him that would necessitate him being on the gurney. There was no blood at least, which was a relief. The officer and the girl I overheard him talking to earlier walked out of the building with the EMTs, and this time I overheard her say in a cheerful voice, "Well, at least nobody died!" Great. I'm still not sure exactly what happened (though I can certainly draw some vivid conclusions from the details provided), but...well, holy shit.
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