So I am just saying that it is 3am., and no one is going to read this. Although, perhaps, I want it that way. Instead of just saying my feelings out loud to people who don't care that much, or putting them on myspace, no thanks, i am just going to type them cause if i were to write them that would cost money. And my hand would get sore.
So, since this is my first "post" perhaps I will introduce myself and maybe let you all in on what this will al be about, and that is my dealings with death and fires.
I work for a property management company. It's an ok job, I like it well enough and it pays the bills. Well last Friday, the 8h, I was at work like any other normal day. I was excited because that night was the Good Foot, Will was coming over, Lidsay was down from San Fran, and Saturday night the girls and I weere going to stay at this swank hotel in Downtown LA called The Standard. We were going to stay there because in Sex and the City, when the girls came to LA from NY, that's the hotel they stayed in. So I am at work.
In the office with the girls, not doing a thing. It's about 3:45pm. A tenant runs into the office and says, "N131 is on fire." We all look at eachother, and my manager yells "call 911" MOriah goes to the phone o call 911, I say, "I'll call Dan (the owner)". I tell him the unit is on fire, and he says he'll be right over.
The thing about this complex is that there are 319 units. Separated into a North and a South side. I have worked here for 6 moths, and I know this place like the back of my hand. I do not get lost, ever.
So after hanging up the phone, I do what we are supposed to do as office employees, and that's alerts the tenants. By this time my manager has already hit the fire alarm. The thing about the alarm is that it goes off all the time. Tenants don't think that much of it. So, I ran up the stairs, not near the fire persay, but I ran up to the second, of 3, floors. I start ringing doorbells and banging on the doors. I am running in 2-3 inch heels, and a tenant comes out and asks what's going on, I tell there is a fire. He says, "oh shit" and decides to follow me. He has keys to another unit and goes inside while I continue knocking on doors. He yells at me that we need to get out of there. I am running after him when I see flames coming up from under a door to one of the stair cases, I scream, panic, and run back the other way. I see another door, I don't read what it says, but I see black smoke coming from under the door. I panic. I am stuck. Trapped. I had brought a walkie talkie with me, I start yelling in the walkie that I need help. I need someone to come and get me. All the while they are yelling in spanish for the cleaning lady they can't find. Smoke has been creeping in this whole time. It's getting darker and thicker.
{The complex is like a hotel in the sense that there are long hallways, with doors on either side, and no windows.}
Soon after the lights went out. The only light I had was the dim light from underneath the doors. That, however, was not going to get me anywhere. I start yeliing for help, by now I am really panicking. I am screaming for help into the walkie and into the hallway. I tried opening up doors to get into apartments to get to their balconies, to get out of the hallways. Meanwhile staying put in one spot because I thought that would be helpful.
They keep asking me where I am on the walkie and I keep telling them that I was by the elevator but not really. I am trying to breathe through my jean jacket, but it was not working out so well. I try the calm approach on the walkie. Telling them "it's hot. I can't see. I can't breathe. I need help. Please send someone to help." I start crying and praying. I keep telling God that I didn't want to die. Sitting in a pitch black hallway, trying to breathe, trying to listen for someone, anyone to come for me. Meanwhile, people from the office are still yelling in spanish over the walkie. I just kept listening for someone to be coming. I heard glass breaking, and things falling. But no one coming. Still crying, I decide that I can't sit there any longer. All I knew was that Flames were to the left of me, and I saw smoke to the right. I chose the ladder, and decided to take my chances with the smoke. I stand up and begin feeling my way along the walls. The walls. They were cool and wet, they were perspiring from the heat of the fire, wherever it was. I was shaking so much that I could barely walk. It felt like it took forever for me to travel down the hallway. It was so dark, I felt like I had my eyes closed. I just gribbed the walkie in one hand and felt the walls with the other. Soon I came upon an open unit in which the maintenace guys had been working in. I thought about going inside, but I knew that balcony only faced the North alley, and I wasn't sure if anyone would be out there. Afterall, who wants to get stuck on a second story balcony durring a fire? I decide against going inside the unit, and continue on. I came to a warm door jam, and if anyone remebers anything you've seen on tv about fires, you know that hat is bad. Well this one was quite warm. I could, however, tell that the door jam lead into another hallway, or to the stairs. Thinking back now, if it had lead to a hallway, I would have been screwed. Instead, I decided that I was going to push the door open. I push it open, and as I do so, smoke comes in but then I saw the daylight and the stairs in front of me. Wihtout hesitation I rush down the stairs saying into the walkie that I was coming down the stairs. As I reach the bottom, I collapse on my knees onto the cement and start coughing and joking trying to get air. A tenant, staring at me in confusion, comes and helps me to the tennis courts after I motion to her a few times that I needed help.
So as I am on the tennis courts, I see people standing around. Everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion. I then see Moriah running on the grass, and I managed to yell her name. She rushed over to me got on the ground and held my hand while we both cried. I gave her the walkie to tell everyone in the office that I was out of the building. She does, meanwhile I am coughing up black stuff onto the tennis courts.
Finally a firemamn comes and helps me. He walks me past he same doorway I was near just as other fire fighters were openeing the door, all this smoke and debris came out. He continues to lead me past the door and into the alley. The same alley thsat the balony was facing that I didn't want to go on because I was afraid i would get stuck. Anywho, so there were tones of trucks and people in the alley, and as he's leading me out, someone is takingmy picture, just for the sake of taking my picture. He then calls another firman's name and passes me onto him. He contiues to lead me down the alley and then gives me to the firmen who were going tobe incharge of medical. They have me sit on the curb only to find out that I needed to move again. So they point me in the right directon of these red mats that I was suppoed to be siting on. So I go over and sit next to a tenant whose arms and face were black from the smoke and the soot. He already has an oxygen mask on, and just looks at me in a daze. I eventually get one, and while we were sitting there, the firmen brought over a kitty with an oxygen mask. The cat happened to belong to the tenant that was sitting next to me. He soon left for the hospital, and I offered to take care of his cat until his wife came for it. During this time I had seen the girls that I worked with in the office, I motioned for them to come to me and asked them to bring me my purse. My boyfriend Will was on his way out to Long Beach, and I had to tell him what was going on. So I text messeged him, my sister, and her husband. I then passed Will and my sister Kelli's phone numbers onto Moriah so she could call them. I still wasn't sure what hospital I was going to. But eventually they got me into anambulance and my manager, Michelle asked if she could go with me. They said that of course she could and she got nto the back. I had my purse in my lap and started writing down my mom's phone numbers, Kelli's number and Will's number so she could call them and let them know what was going on.
We get to Lakewood Regional and people are hooking me up to wires, and putting stuff into my iv, and I just sat there with Michelle, and they made m eput on a gown oer my jeans, and then I saw Will and Dustin, whom Will had picked up because he couldn't find the hospital. Then Alayna showed up, and my brother. Michelle left when her friend kristen came and picked her up, and so then Will's mom showed up. So all of us are in the ER just waiting for me to get a room in ICU.
I got into the hospital at about 5PM maybe, and didn't get up to ICU until after 8PM.
So I get up there and the nurse is helping me get situated. After they all came in and some said goodbbye, KC, Alayna, and Dustin, and Will and his mom stayed there until 10PM which is when they had to leave.
My stay in the hospital wasn't that great. It was terrible. I didn't sleep at all, there was a guy behind me who was like dying or something. He was making like crazy noises. And since they had me hooked up to non-stop fluids though my iv everytime I woke up I had to pee, badly. So I didn't get much sleep. I watched the dog show on Animal Planet, and watched TLC shows, because I knew they wouldn't be showing infomeacials. And the thing about hospital remotes is they only go up, they don't go down. So you can't really change the channel that much because it takes forever to get back to where you were before. So it's either one or the other. never 2 at the same time.
My mom came int he morning, along with Will and alayna who brought me some clean clothes, because i was still wearing my underwear from the day before, and let me tell you I felt disgusting. Near the end of my stay I started getting cramps, uh oh, I thought. "I am not about to tstart my period in the freakin hospital." I asked the nurse if she had anything to ease the pain of my cramps, and all she could give me was Tylentol. I decided it was better than nothing and took it. My momand Alayna left, so it was just Will and I there. He rubbed my feet an legs so they would feel better, and it helped the cramps a lot. Then I started feeling like I had to poop. Oh great. I didn't tell you this before, but everytime I went to the bathroom, it was in a rolling toilet seat with a bucket in the bottom. I was in no way going to poop in that thing. Everytime I saw the nurse I asked if the doctor was coming soon. She said she didn't know. I was waiting and waiting, until FINALLY I saw him. I was relived, as he came in to check my breathing and see how I was doing. He said I would be released, and went outside to write my prescriptions. The nirse came in to un-hook me from all of my wires and what not, and Will lefft togive me some privacy. After I was done being un-hooke, the nurse left I pretty much hopped out of bed and got dressed. I was dying to change my chonies.
When I was finished I walked out and got my paper and sign some stuff, then the nurse walked Will and I downstairs to check out. And after doing so I deiced to use a real bathroom to take care of business.
My car was still at the property so Will had to take me there first tp pick it up. I went inside to say hi to everyone, and let me tell you it was chaotic in there. firemen everywhere, the tenants all outside in the street. It was sad and surreal. After standing around for a while I decided that i wanted to go, I couldn't do anything, and I was geting emotional being there. I said by and asked Dan, the owner if he'd help me get my car out of it's spot since there were so many people around it. He did, and I saw some tenants and asked if they were ok, and if their 6 month old baby was ok. They said they were fine and asked how I wa doing. They said they "heard what I did, and that I was a heroe.' I said just shook my head no and said thank you whilel the man next to them clapped for me. That started getting me emotional so I said I had to go cause I was trying to back up my car.
I went from there to the handmae union show that was happening at the Pants' apartment building. Everyone that I knew was releived to see me, and I told the story about 20 times. But it was good to see them. I stayed for about 30 minutes and then decided I ws too tired to stay any longer. I said my goodbyes and Will and I went home.
I slept for the rest of that day and most of Sunday. I was pretty tired for the beginning of the week after that, but my bosses ensured me that I could have the whole week off and still be paid, so that was nice to know because I really needed to get better. Even now, just over a week since the fire i am still coughing up black stuff. But at least it is coming out. I haven't really completly dealt with what happened. However, I knew I was going to need professional help when my roomate was decorating our christmas tree, i sat on the couch with our friend and watched TV. On the televison there happened to be quite a number of commercials for hotels. Why would this bug me you ask? well, remeber I said that teh complex was like a hotel in the sense that it had doors on either side and and no windows. So while watching this and seeing her decorate the tree, all I could think about was being in a hotel and being stuck in a hallway. and then thinkning baout the tree catching on fire. It wasn't until Will called that I went int he bathrooma nd freaked out and started crying hysterically. I told him how I was scared of the lights and that I didn't want to say anything to Alathea because I was embarassed and didn't want to ruin her christmas. He told me I needed to go out and tell her how I felt, so I did. and she agreed not to turn ont he lights, and they haven't been on really since.
I realized that I do need to get help, adn probab;y tlak to somebody. I can't really go on being afraid of things like christmas trees and hotels and what not.
I go back to work tomorrow, I am a little nervous but hopefully I will be ok. My bosses have been really great. I am not going back to Paradise Gardens, where the fire took place, instead I am going to a different propety in the morning and then going over to the corporate office.
Let me just say that I have had a very interesting week! This past weekend for instance Will an I were riding bikes and there was a car that wanted to turn left so i slowed down so as not to get in it's way and get hit. Well the drivier motioned for me to go ahead and go first so I started to pedal fatser, right as I was about to go down the sidewalk, I was passing a large hedge that I could not see over, and right as I went past it a lady turned the corner and I hit her! Needless to say, when running into a lady who would be considered a "large black woman" you go down pretty fast. i fell into the street, my earing came off, my foot came part way out of my strappy sandals, and it was a little embarassing, and a lot more awesome.
