Le cauchemar..
So after our last day of teaching, some of the other American/Candian/English teachers got together to celebrate we were finished. A night which started out calm, and fun, turned into a cauchemar (nightmare).
It all starts with some people heading over to Katie and Sarah’s apartment. We all had a glass of wine, shared “last week of teaching” stories and played our favorite “stick a celebrity’s name on your forehead” game.
Katie and Stephen - play the celeb game!
(The tulips in this picture were from my students. They gave me so many I brought some over to Katie and Sarah!)
We leave their apartment around 11 and decide we want to go dancing. We try to get into a bunch of places in the 6th arrondisement (classy area = Upper East side of NY equivalent/Back Bay of Boston equivalent). We get declined at almost every place. Some bouncers reasonings were “Stephen is wear sneakers.”, “Vous etes trop nombreux” (You are too many.), etc. Finally we split our group in two, and try seperately to get it. We succeed!
Because we’ve been outside walking around for an hour, K, S, and I head straight to the bathrooms. Stephen and Lesley head to the bar. They each order and drink and then come find us in the bathrooms. Well, here’s where the night takes a turn for the worse. Lesley, holding a bottle of beer, thinks the dimly lit doorway she’s walking through leads to a hallway leading to the bathrooms, but really it’s a stairwell. She tumbles head-first down a flight of stairs [with said glass bottle in hand].
Luckily we were all done in the bathroom, just drying our hands, when we hear a random girl crying. Katie realizes it’s Lesley and freaks when she sees all the blood. A man in line for the bathroom sits Les on a really nicely embroidered WHITE chaise (in which Lesley bleeds all over) and tries to calm her down. He doesn’t succeed. She is by this point in a lot of pain, due to shattered glass all in her arm, and an aching hip which she hit while tumbling down the stairs. I turn into “super mom” and get right into the mess. (Normally, I don’t like blood. But my First Aid training came in hand this night.) The man is now using me and Sarah to translate for Lesley – she’s hysterical and refusing to speak French. He finally calls the pompiers (firefighters/EMTs) and they show up 10 minutes later. Fearful that there’s glass inside her arm, they take her to the hospital. I got to ride in the ambulance with Lesley!
At the hospital, I fill out all Lesley’s paperwork, and because we have the French “teacher” insurance (good coverage) everything that night was free: ambulance ride, ER, points sutures (stitches), pain killers, etc. Long live France and their healthcare! May the US one day emulate it! (Sorry, just saying.) At the end of the night (approx 3am) Lesley comes home with me so I can keep an eye on her. Moral of the evening: Don’t walk down stairs with glass bottles. The End.
We befriended the hospital's night staff.
