Transferred from my old blog: The strangest thing I've ever seen

May 24, 2004

Today Bryan and I took in a little shopping downtown. We came home at about 4:30 pm, and as we were walking down the hill towards St. John's College, we heard someone shouting something like "You can't make me change my mind". We looked to where the shouting was coming from, and saw a man standing on the top level of a parkade with both legs on the wrong side of the barriers. The parkade is about 6 storeys high, definitely high enough to do some serious damage if you fell. We heard someone shouting back to the man, but couldn't really make out what they were saying. So we watched the guy for a little longer, unable to believe or take our eyes away from what appeared to be unfolding. There was a security calling point across the road from where we were standing, and Bryan ran across to let them know what was happening. We came back to stand outside SJC where a few other residents were standing, mouths agape.
Then I realised that the part of the parkade that the man was standing at, only overhung the level below it, so the furthest he could have fallen was one storey. This seemed to be very strange, and I remember thinking he was an idiot if he thought this was a good way to commit suicide. The worst he could have done would be break his arm from that fall. And then.....he jumped. But it wasn't just a jump, it was very calculated, and resembled an Olympic dive with a roll. I would have rated it about a 7/10 for grace, difficulty and dismount. We heard the bang as he landed. I couldn't see up there, but I imagined from the way he fell that he landed flat on his back. That would have hurt, maybe it could have killed him. Then the other people who had been shouting earlier, slowly sauntered up to the railing where the man had been standing a few seconds before. They looked over the edge, non-too concerned, and then yelled sown to the suicidal dude that they would be down in a minute. Then they slowly sauntered off to the stairs and calmly walked down to there the guy had fallen. Was this being filmed for a movie?
I looked around and saw there was a carpark attendant, sitting in a deck chair in the sun at the parkade entrance. I was disconcerted by her calm, and ran over to her. I was either going to point out to her what had just happened or find out what was going on. Well, it turns out that this stunt was all part of the St. John's Ambulance disaster training that had been happening all weekend around UBC campus. The stunt was staged. Then it dawned on us that we had in fact seen a drowning girl being resuscitated by the pool earlier that morning, I had seen a burnt out school bus the day before, and some other kind of first aid on a helpless person at Vanier Residence the day before. Of course!!! Well it was exciting while we thought it was a real suicide, and I really can't wait to find out what disasters behold us tomorrow.