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near death experiences (well, falling..) 25-Nov-2005 At 9:16:01 PM wombly

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I was out on the turps one evening at uni with a pete, and we were steadily working our way back home, becoming less drunk and closer to home with every attempt. Hence, by the time we reached the block of flats on the corner of our street we had pretty much sobered up (and hence can't really blame the beer on subsequent events).

we'd had a pretty good run on some dodgy ground at the uni over the past few months and I had reached the stage where I though i'd had enough. However, I think both me and pete had eyed off a particular line of features for a while - a series of bricks jutting out about 1cm from the rest, going the full way up the double story wall to the roof. So as we jumped on it I was thinking to myself that this was the last time. At the base the holds felt positive - there was enough poking out that you could get you finger tips into the hole down the middle of the brick, but as i climbed higher i realised that the holds were becoming smaller and i couldn't reverse the moves. I was way higher than i wanted to jump, so there was only one way to go. Things got a little spicer as i slapped for the summit jug, which was a rusty piece of tin and none to frictional, but fear took me over the top with a mantle - only just in time to see a hand slap for the roof on the identical line on the other side of the gable. I can still see pete's hand slip off the tin and the sickening thud as he hit the dirt about 8m below.

After a few groans and four letter words from pete i figured he was still alive, but needed some assistance. I still don't know how i did the reverse mantle/roof move down over an eave and onto the 2nd floor balcony, but i was feeling pretty sheepish by the time i helped pete hobble the 50 m back home. After a coulpe of hours of lying in bed the adrenalin must have worn out as pete decided that we should probably take him to the hospital a km or so down the road - only i didn't want to risk driving past a booze bus so he wanted me to push him there in a shopping trolley! we ended up taking the more sensible option of waking up one of our housemates.

The aftermath of the adventure was a couple of fractured vertebrae which pete still has trouble with. I haven't done any serious buildering since.