A Res. Life Nightmare

The worst thing I can imagine happening at work would be a fire in a resident's building...think Seton Hall in New Jersey....not good. Last night, nightmare became reality.

At 6pm, I was driving back on campus having just purchased a Powerball ticket for my brother Bobby. (Powerball was $340 million. We didn't win.) As I was coming down University boulevard, Security is coming from the other direction. They throw on their lights and take off towards the apartments. 30 seconds later the ACOC phone rings (I am on call this week). It is not Security but rather one of my RAs who has a resident with a serious medical emergency.

I arrive at my building when the phone rings again. This time it is a coworker who says smoke is billowing out of one of the apartment buildings. I can't help her because I have to help this student who is having a seizure. Medical support arrives where I am and they reek of smoke from the fire. A real fire not the typical I burnt popcorn fire alarm!

I get the student with the medical emergency transported to the hospital and then head to the scene of the fire. We could not have had a luckier set of circumstances. The fire department was already in housing presenting a fire safety program to a group of residents. It took them 30 seconds to respond. My supervisor and the director of the department were on campus because they were planning to attend the Housing wide program my RAs were hosting later that evening.

No students were hurt and we only had three rooms that we had to move students out of. The fire itself (which was in the attic of the 2nd floor apartment) did not cause much damage but the firemen had to take apart several walls and there was water damage in the room below the fire.

All in all, we were pretty fortunate in this situation.