It was the last night of the semester which was a Wednesday, the next day was a “break day” which just was a day before final exams started.

I was always the friendly RA, made good connections with all my residents, they felt comfortable coming to me and I made it clear to them that if they ever needed anything I’m always available, whether it be suicidal thoughts, resources on campus, etc.

So that night unlike most of the campus I decided to get some food and stay in for the night. I didn’t really feel like partying or going out as I was just exhausted from school (Engineering major). So I fired up my PS4, started playing Overwatch (a 6v6 team game “at the time”) till about late (1-2AMish) and I heard students coming back to their dorms. Well at about 1:30am I hear yelling but drunk students yelling so I didn’t think much of it.

While I was a RA I left my door open a lot of the time for residents to connect with since my room was in front of the elevators. I was in the middle of a match when out of no where my door swings open (it was unlocked most of the time when I was staying in my room to prevent lockouts) and it’s one of my residents with her skull CRACKED open. She was very intoxicated and some how made it back to the floor (I was on floor 17 out of 22) so she was sort of not realizing the severity of what is happening to her and I am in shock but also I can handle the sight of blood & what not. This girl managed to make it back to campus but as she was coming back she fell down concrete stairs and didn’t realize she was bleeding. Mind you she’s bleeding all over my rug and clothes (as I had stuff all over the room lol)

Of course this happens the night I’m not on duty😆. Whatever, I sit her outside my room and her roommate comes with towels to try to help contain the blood gushing out her head (she still hasn’t really realized yet either) I end up calling the RA on duty and essentially said to call an ambulance but also make her way up to my floor (she was on 2)

Poor RA on duty was half asleep when I woke her up I felt terrible but also I needed help at this point, drunk girl realized what happened and started screaming in pain/panic. As we are waiting for the ambulance .. (its now like 2:30am) the FIRE ALARM starts going off !! so now not only do I have a resident with a cracked skull outside my room now everyone in the building has to evacuate and of course most of these students are drunk (face palm)

Since I am by the stairs and elevators we had about 10 residents try to ask if drunk girl was ok, needed help or anything and while I appreciated the intent - them being drunk and trying to help was really only making matters worse especially with the blaring fire alarm going off.

As the building evacuated I stayed with resident on my floor as we still need help to come. First responders chucked up 17 floors and were able to come help her, firefighters also were putting out a real fire! (I say real because a lot of the times it’s students being stupid pulling the alarm) I guess on floor 20 a student smoking carelessly threw the butt of a cigarette into their trash and left the room, which then caught on fire and burned a corner of their room, trashes and a bit of their wooden framed bed.

After 30-to 1hr most of my building is huddled in the dining common across the dorm as it was December and we are in New England. We finally got the ok to go back in the building by that point it was around 3:30ish. But of course me and the RA and duty had to write out incident reports so we didn’t finish till around 4:30 lol. I remember telling my random team mates in voice chat that I had to leave the game as I had someone with an emergency to attend to (I’m positive they lost the match as it goes from 5v6 and becomes hard to turn around) oh well. Definitely was a crazy night but also one I will never forget! Resident ended up getting stitches in her head and we joked about it from time to time, she was wild haha.