The Window Incident, in Three Takes

I mentioned recently that I once fell out of a window. The incident occurred when I was in college, on a lovely spring Saturday. A friend and I had been listening to music and goofing around in my dorm room. We stepped outside and realized that the keys to the room were on my desk.

The dorm was not conventional; it did not house several hundred students. Instead, it was a converted apartment building in which about thirty-six students lived. When my friend and I realized we were locked out, we walked around the building to see if someone might help us because my studious roommate was at the library. No one responded.

The room stood above a garden level on an elevated first floor. It had French-door windows overlooking a narrow balcony. The windows were open that day. I decided to try to reenter the building by reaching for the railing and jumping onto the balcony—I planned to walk in through those windows. I did fine at first: I grabbed the railing and started to twist over it. But I lost my balance, and I fell about ten feet.

I didn't feel much pain initially; I walked around without incident for about thirty-six hours. The next day—early Sunday evening—I was studying at (another) friend's room for a midterm. I felt suddenly "green," and I fainted. My friend telephoned the campus police, and an officer drove us to an emergency room. There, the physician told me I had broken my ankle. I was in a cast for about eight weeks.

 
My Dad drove up to campus to inspect the window and determine how I could have fallen out of it.

Evanston, Illinois, April 7, 1978. The room's windows are right above the green van's hood.

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Evanston, Illinois, May 17, 1978. I model my cast at the site of the injury.

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Evanston, Illinois, October 2000. I return to the spot where I fell.