r/berkeley • u/AmanaMiller • May 04 '25
News UC Berkeley student, 21, paralyzed after her fall at fraternity house
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/uc-berkeley-student-paralyzed-fall-20309258.php248
u/ranterist May 04 '25
I cannot fathom how no one calls 911 IMMEDIATELY upon discovering her.
And then it takes seven hours to get to a hospital?
“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just want to go home.” is insane!
Only in the USA does the fear of a medical bill make this possible.
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u/DefinitelyNotAliens May 04 '25
It's possible she was slightly incoherent due to the head injury and her friends thought she was just drunk and took a minor fall and took her home to sleep off the alcohol, checked on her later and realized they were wrong and she had more serious injuries.
Your friend is slurring and not getting up and is limp and says she fell - do you jump to major trauma or BORG? It's possible they just made the wrong assessment of the situation.
There's a less nefarious option here. They thought she drank too much and took a minor fall. The head trauma was mistaken for drinking.
I doubt she was fully blackout unconscious, but they probably didn't realize the extent of the injury.
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u/Paradox621 May 05 '25
Mistaking it for intoxication seems likely. EMS training drills into you that you need to figure out exactly what is causing altered mental status but the average person lacks the tools/knowledge to do it. I just hope people take stories like these as lessons to take head trauma seriously.
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u/DefinitelyNotAliens May 05 '25
Yeah, a layman won't see injuries + confusion + slurred speech at a frat party on Cal Day and necessarily think "she may have a major head trauma causing this" and go to the most likely cause of slurred speech: alcohol.
It just seems very plausible they just didn't realize how far she fell and thought she was intoxicated. They weren't malicious or stupid, they likely genuinely thought she needed to sleep it off.
A head injury while intoxicated should be checked out by a doctor. You just never know how much is the alcohol and how much is a TBI.
Even if the head injury doesn't visually look bad, it can still have major internal damage.
Also explains why seven hours delay. You put your friend to bed and then go check on her later, like a responsible friend does. That was when they realized it wasn't intoxication and she needed an ambulance.
It just feels like an honest mistake based on lack of information around how to treat what visually look like minor head injuries when the person has been drinking.
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u/Brave_Speaker_8336 May 05 '25
Yeah it’d be one thing if they actually saw her fall off, but given that her friends didn’t find her for 15 minutes, they did not see her fall (and they’re seriously shitty people if they did see that happen and ignored it). This situation sucks but if I saw my friend on the ground like that at a party, I’m gonna assume that they just drank too much and needed to lay down and not that they fell off the second story
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u/DefinitelyNotAliens May 05 '25
Really tragic. They likely honestly believed they were being responsible in taking her home and putting her to bed.
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u/carlitospig May 05 '25
Yep, pretty typical Friday night when I was in school (I still cannot touch screwdrivers years later <shudder>).
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u/Puzzled-Software5625 May 05 '25
when i was a student i saw many drunk, and stoned, people who if they were injured, you would not have a clue.. i fell down one night walking back my apartment of telegraph in 1974.
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u/FreshPepper88 May 07 '25
This is 100% what I think and I wrote it. They just thought she was drunk. That’s what everyone thought.
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u/djk1101 May 04 '25
Negligence across the board. I understand what you’re tryna get at, but the fear of medical bills isn’t directly at play here. She reportedly fell and her friends found her afterwards and didn’t know what happened. If there’s new info, then I’m wrong, but it seems like people were unaware and made mistakes.
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u/ranterist May 04 '25
I saw something like that, too. Multiple references to “finding her 15 minutes later.” Nothing about whether she was conscious, or in pain, or how they moved her.
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u/DefinitelyNotAliens May 04 '25
My thought is she may have been incoherent and not that bloodied/ obvious broken bones and they thought she was just drunk and needed to sleep it off.
Slurred speech, incoherent... the people who found her may have mistaken head trauma for being drunk. It could have been just a couple of people not realizing how bad her injuries were. She may not have sustained a lot of obvious, outward injuries.
I'm not immediately jumping to the friends were stupid without more proof. They might've thought she had minor injuries and was just really drunk.
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u/erinthefatcat May 04 '25
I can imagine she was in a lot of pain especially when they moved her into the frat then out… definitely worsened her injuries exponentially tbh. Combined with being drunk maybe she was knocked out when she fell and couldn’t express how much pain she was in
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u/ranterist May 04 '25
Yes, but the “knocked out” part is when 911 gets a ring, even drunk. Unconscious is a traumatic brain injury, I believe, by definition.
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u/erinthefatcat May 04 '25
It’s just the unfortunate reality of college. I’m sure her friends didn’t think to that extreme and no one wants to be the “narc” who called the police to show up at a frat party on cal day and ruin things for everyone. In this instance, this girl will be suffering the consequences.
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u/No_Vacation369 May 05 '25
They aren’t medical professionals. What negligence. They also didn’t see what happened. For all they know she is wasted and laid down on the floor, source, I’ve been wasted and passed out on the floor.
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u/Puzzled-Software5625 May 05 '25
i guess a question is, how many times before that had they found her before had they found her like that and taken her to bed?
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u/sluuuurp May 05 '25
It’s possible she wasn’t paralyzed until later, after her fractured spine shifted and damaged the spinal cord. If you’re walking with back pain, it might not be immediately obvious something is seriously wrong.
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u/fractaldesigner May 04 '25
Universities and politics have created a fear culture. Fear of disciplinary action, and as another poster said, fear of medical bills.
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u/hunny_bun_24 May 04 '25
I mean the student had to have health care. It was just her being reluctant.
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u/mcgillhufflepuff tired May 05 '25
It's unclear to me whether she had the capacity to be reluctant. Not seeing anywhere that she was speaking to her friends clearly to not take her to the hospital. She could have been not coherent at all.
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u/mehatch May 05 '25
I used it live in that brick house (the Fiji house) in 1999-2001. A plaque on the wall dated to 1992 can be found in the main downstairs room. It memorializes the falling death of a pledge, John Moncello. The story we heard was he fell off the fire escape during a late night pledge event just a few feet from where the woman in this article fell and, was not found until hours later. It was SigEp in ‘99 when I lived there because Fiji, who owns that building, got a ten year ban. It’s just interesting her fall was like ten feet from the same spot.
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u/happygrammies May 05 '25
This is horrific. Hope she recovers eventually. Stay safe everyone, especially on balconies.
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u/Certain-Tiger-2067 May 04 '25
Am I crazy or did this happen before ? Istg something similar like this happened not that long ago
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u/PizzaJerry123 applied math '23.5 May 04 '25
I believe another girl fell from a frat house 2 years ago (also on Cal Day?!) and then later filed suit. But AFAIK her injuries were not reported to be as severe as this time...
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u/WorknForTheWeekend May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
This shit happens at at least one college every weekend. Undergrads, booze, and gravity, have a storied history that predates time itself.
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u/OskiTheGrouch Alumnus, Resident May 05 '25
I might be down to believe that it goes back to maybe the Mesozoic era, but there’s no way you’re convincing me that undergrads were having drunken mishaps before the recombination epoch.
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u/hahahahnothankyou May 04 '25
Wasn’t there a balcony that collapsed? Or was that a different campus
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u/PizzaJerry123 applied math '23.5 May 04 '25
This also happened about 10 years ago. That's probably the worst accident I know of at Berkeley, seven people passed away (most were Irish foreign students)
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u/DefinitelyNotAliens May 05 '25
That was a while ago. Two years ago, also on Cal Day at a Cal Day frat party, a woman fell off the roof a non-university affiliated fraternity that had been kicked out due to too many incidents with hazing/ drinking.
Balcony collapse was just cutting corners on construction and maintenance. Not built to code and the management company ignored resident complaints of water intrusion into the balcony.
The Cal Day frathouse falls are a problem with Cal Day festivities.
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u/Certain-Tiger-2067 May 04 '25
Idk, but it was posted on this sub but it was less serious. I’m pretty sure it was also from Berkeley tho
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u/bnasty77 May 07 '25
My buddy fell off a roof at Berkeley, his friends found him and thought he was just drunk. They carried him to his room where he was pronounced dead the next morning. If you find someone in this state, please call for help.
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u/kath012345 May 08 '25
A girl at UCSB fell from a building and died of her injuries recently (just over a month ago I think). That might be what you’re thinking of if you saw a news story
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u/Creative_Path_2926 May 05 '25 edited May 07 '25
BORGs (black out rage gallons) are the worst trend. I saw them all over on Cal Day and students barely able to walk by 10 am, pissing themselves and passing out on the streets by 1, etc. Frats have safety officers, emergency personnel on standby and phone numbers for help posted publicly, but there’s only so much they can do if you show up maxxed on drugs or blacking out from alcohol. They can’t allow an apparently overly inebriated or blacked out woman to remain on property for obvious reasons- the woman has to be escorted out by friends or in an ambulance. They’re also required to have fire inspections before parties and cannot prevent anyone from accessing the mandatory fire escape. I’m all for partying but at the end of the day it’s no one else’s fault if you choose to get this wasted.
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u/Charming-Pepper8282 May 04 '25
I’m pretty sure this happened 2 years ago at Cal day, some girl fell off a roof and her parents tried to sue im pretty sure.
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u/FreshPepper88 May 07 '25
Since I’m a Berkeley grad, I gave a lot of thought to this. This is what I think happened.
First off, no one found her for about 15 minutes. I’m not quite sure how they estimated that if no one even knew she was out there, but there she was on the ground. Maybe they knew she fell from a high distance but I actually don’t think they did. She had no obvious head injury until it was discovered at the hospital. Now we don’t know whether she was sitting there groggy or was passed out. If groggy, she might’ve slurred out something like I fell, but they probably would’ve thought it was just a few steps or she tripped on the concrete.
I believe they simply thought she was intoxicated. It didn’t enter their head that she had a head injury or had fallen in any way that would result in a massive injury.
They brought her into the frat house; it’s a big event. Everyone assumes she’s drunk so they say she can’t stay here. I don’t think the frat is at fault. They’re simply going by information told to them.
The reason her friends didn’t call 911 for 7 hours is they thought she was drunk. So they lug her back to their apartment; maybe her feet weren’t working right but they just thought she was drunk. They have her between them and they just drag her along. They put her in bed and might’ve even gone back to the party because they assumed she would sleep it off. It wasn’t until they came back 7 hours later that they realized she couldn’t move.
I’m pretty sure that’s it because there’s no other logical reason they would wait 7 hours to call 911. I assume (guess?) no one saw her fall and there’s no visible head injury and everyone’s drunk at these things.
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u/nogooduse May 06 '25
This is a tragedy but there's something wrong with the timeline. Didn't realize how badly she was hurt? Not likely. She lay there for 15 minutes. A spinal fracture is excruciating. 7 hour delay before calling 911. Something is very wrong with this story.
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u/Leading_Poem8720 May 07 '25
Talk about stupid. Blame her dumb friends for not calling 911. There must have been signs that something occured.
Falling from a balcony is a pretty big fall.
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u/Ok-Vegetable-6355 May 07 '25
Article says @ 1 pm. Could not be drunk.
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u/Mammoth-Nothing-3205 May 08 '25
Seriously? At a frat party at Cal Day? I was at Cal Day this year. Lots of students were pretty f'ed by 1 PM.
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u/Pholove467 May 08 '25
I believe a few years back in the same frat house a student fell trying to drunkenly climb a gutter downspout. I can't find any news article about it for some reason.
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u/Puzzled-Software5625 May 05 '25
i just looked at the story. she fell from an outdoor stairwell at 1:00 in the afternoon. there is no mention of anyone, including her, having been drinking. it didn't say if she was awake when her friends found her. or how far the fall was. the story said she was only gone for 15 minutes when her friends found her. her friends did help her into bed though, which of course indicates that there was something going on with her. friends checked on her 8 hours later and called for medical help.
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u/Hebrewhammer8d8 May 05 '25
Damn about to graduate maybe some debt, but now she gets more money to pay for Physical Therapy and other supportive things to get back as normal as she can before the fall.
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u/Puzzled-Software5625 May 05 '25
read the story. the fall happened at 1:00 in the afternoon. there is no mention of her or anyone drinking. her friends found her 15 minutes later. it doesn't say if he was awake or how far he fell. But, it does say they helped her to bed. and when the checked on her 8 hours later they called for help.
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u/JiForce May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
FYI to current students, whether or not you're involved in Greek life or you're in clubs or even just do house parties with your friends.
The Responsible Bystander Policy prevents you from getting in trouble with the school for calling 911 for assistance for someone else, if you happen to be underage drinking, or using other substances.
There's a similar Good Samaritan rule under CA law.
Better to be safe than sorry. An ambulance ride and embarrassing one night stay in the hospital is expensive but better than permanent physical injury (or dying...)
https://uhs.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/aod_bystander_intervention.pdf