Balcony-collapse patients recovering

Students injured when a balcony collapsed this past Friday are recovering, some from major injuries, despite reports injuries were only minor. The incident has some questioning whether students can judge off-campus housing safety for themselves.

According to Lt. Michael Oprandy, Richmond Fire Department’s public information officer, out of the 20 people transported from the 1300 block of West Cary Street to the hospital, about six of them had serious injuries. Two of them had life-threatening injuries.

“The rest were . what we call ‘walking wounded,’ ” Oprandy said. “People who were able to get up on their own and move away from the affected area – strains and sprains and cuts and scratches – stuff like that.”

Oprandy said the myriad injuries included leg, arm, clavicle and ankle fractures.

“There’s also the possibility that the patients have internal injuries too,” Oprandy said. “With a fall from that height, we have to assume that there might be some injuries on the inside that we can’t see from the outside.”

Lydia Teffera, a mass communications major and political science minor, said doctors were concerned about potential internal injuries she might have suffered. She was on the deck when it fell, and was rushed to the hospital because she could not breathe.

“(Doctors) found that air had gotten out of my lungs and gotten between them, so they had to hold me overnight again because that can cause a collapsed lung,” Teffera said.

Kate Purnell, a pre-nursing major, fractured two vertebrae in her neck when the balcony collapsed. She said she will have to wear a neck brace for several months.

“Basically, we didn’t think it would happen,” Purnell said. “People joked about it. They were like ‘, Oh, this is going to fall,’ but we didn’t think it actually would. Some people were trying to get people to go the balcony next door, but it was too late.”

Purnell’s roommate, Vanna Vagorodnaya, a mass communications major, fractured her knee in the accident.

“I thought it would be fine, because it was a . pretty big balcony,” Vagorodnaya said. “I mean we joked about it, but we really didn’t think it would collapse. It looked stable.”

Off Campus Student Services Supervisor Martha Harper said students should be more aware of their surroundings in order to prevent accidents like the deck collapse.

“Students are a special crowd that should really look at things, and they tend not to, (such as) rotten wood, a soft porch,” Harper said. “Maybe (the balcony) was visibly unsound, but maybe when you’re only 19 or 20 years old, you don’t know what visibly unsound looks like.”

Harper said she hopes the collapse will boost student awareness about the safety of their own apartments.

“This is such a horrible, unfortunate accident.” Harper said. “If it gets students aware that the world is not necessarily taking care of them, that they need to look for what’s wrong and take care of it themselves by calling somebody and noticing, maybe that’s a side benefit.”

Harper said Off Campus Student Services can offer advice to students who are worried about the safety of their off-campus housing. She said they host an educational piece every year about off-campus apartments called “Moving On, Moving Out,” but attendance has been low.

“Only about 100 students show up out of the thousands that go get an apartment,” Harper said. “We’d love to see more show up . but sometimes when you call something ‘safety,’ students don’t come.”

Lt. Michael Oprandy said student renters should always contact the building owner to make sure their deck is built to code, but he says in this case, “common sense” could have saved those injured a lot of trouble.

“Don’t overload the balconies. They’re not made for 50 people on a small deck dancing or jumping up and down,” Oprandy said. “In this situation, just having somebody regulate the amount of people that were on that deck would have prevented this from happening.”

Information about “Moving On, Moving Out” can be found at www.usca.vcu.edu/offcampus