Bringing Down the Balcony?

A bit of news here in Austin occurred over the weekend, Saturday night/Sunday morning around 4 am, a balcony collapsed at a party, injuring some two dozen of the revelers at that party.

It appears that a condo owner added a "cool" balcony with it's own spiral staircase to the apex. It's still under investigation whether or not everything was up to code, but upon examining the photographs, Corrie said she'd be shocked to hear if it was all properly constructed.

Normally something like this might not rank in on this blog, but one of the revelers, one of the unfortunate people underneath the balcony when it collapsed was our very own Rachel, my wife's cousin and our current roommate. The morning after when she called from the hospital and told us the good news, that her hip wasn't broken, you kind of wince and grit your teeth. It seemed like the majority of her injuries were obtained by way of trampling, as the stampede of party goers exited the place en masse. A stiletto puncture in her jeans a few centimeters from her birth canal is another sign of luck. She does have a nice gash on her torso and a lacerated liver.

She wanted me to give a shout out to Omar and Ronald Flemming, the two heroes that ran back and carried her out of the stampede, moments before total disaster, saving her life in her view, which is most likely accurate.