72 CommentsLast night, a student fell from the 8th Floor of Wien Hall. Police responded shortly after and transported him quickly to St. Luke’s while he was in critical condition. Sources confirmed he was stable and breathing once he arrived at the hospital. An email from Cristen Kromm, Associate Dean of Residential Life, was sent to students late last night informing them of the accident. Kromm assured students that support is available for them through their RAs in their residence halls, or by going to CPS this morning. You can view her email as well as our tweet in regards to the incident last night below.
Sources confirm a student jumped from the 8th fl of Wein. He’s in stable condition at St. Luke’s. It doesn’t appear to be a suicide attempt.
— Bwog (@bwog) December 16, 2014
Email:
Dear Students,
I am writing to let you know that earlier this evening, a male student was seriously injured due to a fall from an upper level of Wien Hall. The student has been taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital for medical attention, and his family has been notified.
We know that this has been a very difficult evening for many students. Staff have been assisting students throughout the evening at the hospital, in Wien Hall, and in Lerner Hall. We encourage you to reach out to the RA on-call in your building who can access additional support, if you are in need tonight, or to your advising deans or Counseling & Psychological Services (CPS) in the morning.
As your parents and family members may learn of this incident, please reach out to them to let them know you are okay.
Take care,
Cristen Kromm
Associate Dean of Residential Life
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72 Comments
@Anon Must have been one hell of a comedown…
@damn ill have what hes having
@Ok, but At the moment, it’s probably surgery.
@#blacklivesmatter Are you the NYPD? Because you take my breath away.
@not an nyu student go away
@NYU Student Lol you guys are starting to act like us now
@wien8 on another note, i could barely breathe/study in my room because of the smell of weed seeping through my room ( I live on his floor). I was right about to email housing about this but am glad I didn’t I guess … I would have felt somewhat guilty when this happened
@huh whut wait are you kidding me? you cannot seriously think that he behaved in this manner and fell out a window if he smoked a whole lot of weed. He definitely had to have taken sometime else, too, if he even smoked weed at all. Sure, some people react poorly to cannabis, but they don’t jump out windows. Maybe I’m bias because I smoke a lot, and have been basically perms-stoned since finals began, since it’s the only way I get through things without freaking out, but I think we’re definitely looking at something else.
@no one cares grow some balls and go study in the library
@Wow you kids really love to write
@A. Nonymous Hey students,
I’m a prof of nearly 20 years. Just in case you think there’s no point in talking to your profs about the stress you are under, and especially if that stress is due to the insane production schedule of these last few weeks of the semester, please know that most of us will listen and try to respond if you let us know you just can’t get us work in time or need an extra day or two, or are just feeling too stressed out to work well. Please don’t see us as intractable forces in your life with our deadlines and your ambition to succeed being fixed points on the chart. We care about you as human beings first, or many of us do (I know it’s not everyone). In fact, if you feel your prof won’t listen to your concerns about meeting a deadline or the quality of your work despite expressing that you are are feeling seriously stressed, then talk to another professor that’s more sympathetic.
We see it every semester, for years and years, and we know it’s only getting worse. Some of us are even consciously trying to do something about it in the way we plan courses and assignments, for example. But a lot of the stress is external and beyond any simple interventions we can make at a structural level.
However we can and will make interventions at an individual level. We are all well alerted by the administration to be attentive to student mental health issues and you should never feel embarrassed to say you’re depressed or stressed out or whatever is really going on for you, not to mention that probably 3/4 of the CU faculty has some personal experience with depression and anxiety issues, if my sense of my colleagues is right.
Go to counseling services. Go to your friends. Call your parents. But remember your professors do care about you and will be flexible if it can help you deal, probably much more so than you might imagine especially if you are new to Columbia or an international student.
@3/4 of CU faculty have been depressed? Is it just a Columbia thing or the academia in general
@A. Nonymous Prof again.
I said “personal experience with,” not “is afflicted by.” Even so, I do think academia selects for certain personality types and many CU faculty members have personal histories of struggling with their own mental health issues, most especially depression and anxiety. (It can be a depressing and anxiety-inducing career choice!)
The way I see it, a student who gets high and injured as a result is calling for help just as much as if he directly attempted self-harm.
And one more tip while I’m at it: the more senior the faculty member, the more likely they are to be flexible and empathetic with a student under pressure. The longer you do this work, the more each semester turns into a tiny blip and your students turn into long stories in which you play a small role. TAs and junior faculty and adjuncts have a lot less experience with students in crisis, and/or fewer resources for assisting them (or less flexibility), and often a more rigid sense of the mission of teaching. It’s counterintuitive to some students, but the most sympathetic ear is likely the faculty member with 4 books out and 20 years under her/his belt. I myself have counseled, intervened on behalf of, and assisted countless students in crisis, including more than a few in severe emotional crisis. It’s not a new experience, and it’s something you get better at as you teach longer.
@Anonymous It’s not just a Columbia thing. I was at Columbia for many years. I am now at another high achieving school. It’s well-documented that smarter people experience depression at higher rate than the rest of the population. At my current school, I see and hear the same type of anxiety, depression, etc. expressed by students, staff, and faculty that I witnessed at Columbia. It doesn’t mean it’s ok, but it does mean that it is commonplace.
@Young Alum Thanks for writing prof. I think that ultimately this post is a great step in the right direction, and I hope that you will make a similar speech in your class maybe at the beginning and at the end of the semester (and maybe even put something in your syllabus). And I hope that you encourage your colleagues to do likewise. The more profs and admins and fellow students can share that no one is alone, the better off we will all be. Thanks again.
@A. Nonymous I don’t make a formal announcement about it, but I try to communicate empathy for students in every interaction (and I fear I am known far and wide as a big softy). I am however fairly assertive about saying something if I detect a student might be in crisis. And my teaching philosophy boils down to “I want to meet you where you are.”
I myself dropped out of college once because of my own mental health issues, and didn’t come back for a few years, in fact. No one is completely immune to stress, although everyone experiences it and happiness depends in part on learning to manage it.
@letmesaysomethingrealfuckingclearly this is natural selection and deserves to be documented in the darwin awards. this guy does not have my sympathies whatsoever. Let’s not beat around the bush here: it’s time you FUCKTARDS grow the FUCK UP and realize that there are consequences for your actions. You cannot just do whatever the fuck you want – you cannot do what drugs you want – anymore and think you’ll get a free ride. The kid is lucky to have his life and he should shape the FUCK UP if he wants to keep it.
Let me qualify this statement by saying this is not my being a troll whatsoever, I wholeheartedly stand by these statements. I’ve made mistakes and have suffered the consequences too. And you know what – I’m glad I did because they served as a real fucking eyeopener.
@Donegoodthenallowmetorebut Thank you for being so clear.
I mean, sometimes, I read some of the infantile, inflammatory posts on Bwog and think “this person is pranking us to see how we react, for their own petty jollies. There is no way someone who got through the process of getting here and interacting with people every day could lack basic empathy that we expect from a normal, functional human being.”
But here you are, you precious gem, just flat out telling us that you’re not a troll, and thus confirming that you flat-out lack those capacities.
Whatever happened, someone is seriously injured. In the lack of a clear account of events, we’re still trying to figure out what exactly happened.
(Please, don’t use the Post as a source of journalism. They would, and literally have, published a cover photo of a man about to be hit by a subway train. Sales is their goal, not quality journalism. Could be drugs, could be a weird accident. I’m waiting for some grownups, here.)
And so, naturally, people are a bit raw about this. Especially in the light of another recent death on campus.
Yet, here you are, brave tiny rebel, standing up for only-God-himself-knows what and telling us you don’t have any sympathies. Not that it actually matters- nobody asked so far as I know, and in the experience of most folks people shouting “I have no sympathies for…!” don’t really have all that much sympathies in the first place yet want to bill that as a virtue.
Sympathies, here, could go to the hospitalized student (and, lets be honest, something had to go drastically wrong for that chain of events to happen), as he’s in very fragile condition.
But it could just as soon go to whoever witnessed it happening. Or his friends. Or his family. Or, naturally, somebody else might have been in that room- sympathies go there. Or, to an extent, to the community at large. But none of this is served by the squat-on-a-pot of a post you just sent.
And, seriously, “you cannot do what drugs you want anymore”? Is that really such a controversial position? And you just came to that conclusion? Thank you SO much, DARE Daren!
How many people did you, in all seriousness, think do drugs capable of letting you ignore mortal danger, here? Even if there were, it probably would make you capable of ignoring forum-hackery. Like this one, but yours too.
So you did nothing but antagonize people who are confused, worried, maybe even a bit scared. I hope it makes you feel better or braver or cleaner or more manly to have done that, because basically you accomplished nothing else.
Merry Christmas, “Fucktard.”
PS, congratulations on discovering the word “Fuck”. What are you, twelve? Maybe using it as punctuation works on 4chan or someplace, but it really doesn’t carry any water outside internet venues chock-full of emotionally stunted mankids.
@gg U mad bro
@Anonymous No, not really. Just what I said above. You?
oh, sorry: nah brah, cool story bro.
@Anonymous a kid falls out of an 8th story window, and the first words out of your mouth are ‘this is natural selection’?
YOU are the one who needs to reevaluate your life.
@Blunts in Butler Reincarnate Just sent him a care package of some sweet bud. Gotta regain that appetite.
@Anon Ymus He was probably just trying to figure out how high he was.
@Emma S. “I believe I can flyyyyy!” – R. Kelly
@stop it you’re not being smart or funny, just a jerk
@Friend At least “Emma S” isn’t one lying in the hospital bed.
@Anonymous I bet he still has to take his finals.
@Anonymous I blame the protestants.
@Anonymous I hope his family is OK. I hope anyone who witnessed this is OK.
@Emma S why the fuck do you even care about anyone who “witnessed it”? Pretty sure the dude who fell fucking 5 floors has it so much worse anything else is negligible.
@Emma S. You are not the real Emma S., and will never be you fake rapee
@Anonymous Kids: Just say No to DRUGS!
@No I don’t know if this is the right response. Plenty of people drop acid and are completely fine. It’s obviously some serious stuff, but to blame it on the drug is just misleading. 1) He decided to take the drug…during exams, 2) We know that this stuff is intense, so why didn’t he have a friend watch over him, 3) We have to take responsibility for our choices: if you don’t have a driver’s license, you don’t start driving a car and get sympathy because you get in a car crash…if you do acid you need to know what you’re doing and take responsible precautions. Of course there are systems in place to educate people on how to drive cars, but that’s the problem with drugs being illegal: there’s no oversight that goes into quality control, and people don’t have ready access on how to consume drugs responsibly. That being said, if there was a newspaper story for everytime someone responsible took acid and was safe, then people wouldn’t buy into the scare tactics associate with the “Say no to drugs” campagin.
@Friend AMEN
@Do we know Do we know that it was acid that he took?
@quit speculating and read the damn articles. they say what was involved here and it was VERY clearly was not a suicide attempt.
@Anonymous Why did he go into a girls room and strip? UGGGHHH! Something really wrong here. I hope she’s OK….
@Demosthenes Because college.
@Anonymous how does the window open far enough to allow him to fall out?
@nd NY post says he went into a girls room and stripped in front of her and she ran out. Attempted rape gone wrong?
@Emma S she was asking for it
@Anonymous (Doesn’t Wien have window stoppers to help prevent this kind of thing?)
Poor guy. Hope he pulls through okay.
@Yes actually At last check CU staff are mostly baffled at how he even got out through the window in the first place.
@Anonamoose Yes, because obviously no one would ever remove those to actually get some sort of ventilation.
@Friend They’re there for a reason. Now to know why. Go for a walk or something.
@Friend *you know why
@Anonymous even if it wasn’t a suicide attempt, being so out of your mind high that you fall out of an eighth story window is not exactly indicative of good mental health.
Not judging the kid, I feel bad for him, I’m just sayin
@thearbiter I love judging my peers. Being sanctimonious is great!
@TRACKED get the eff out of here troll, someone almost died last night. be a semi-decent human being for once in your miserable life.
@Anonymous Right, it might be mental health, might be stress, might be drugs, might be poor mental health aggravated by stress and self medicated with judges. We can’t begin to imagine what was going through his mind but it wasn’t something healthy.
@Let's be mindful We recently lost a fellow student, and one thing I’ve reminded myself is that we have to be as supportive as possible to others who are going through difficult times. That includes lending an empathetic ear, and it also includes being mindful of what we say about others.
We know the student fell from the 8th floor, but we can’t decisively conclude it was a suicide attempt. And even if it was, I can’t imagine the student’s emotional or physical well-being benefitting from our debating whether or not it was a suicide attempt. I know we are a caring and wise community, so I know we will demonstrate that by being mindful of what we say in the comments section here.
@Friend Drugs.
@#blacklivesmatter WHAT? This is an OUTRAGE! Where is the discussion of the white oppressive Klu Klux Klan wielding COLUMBIA which clearly is RESPONSIBLE for the above incident. my #blacklivesmatterblackpanthersunite sources indicate to me that this student, a colored person, was subsequently ATTACKED by a bunch of white doctors and nurses in the hospital that felt the need to “medicate him” as per the #whitemansburden. What a sick world it is!
@Anonymous I understand the sentiment, but I don’t think it’s appropriate when one of our friends is hospitalized with serious injuries, and there’s been no other mention of social justice or anything in any of these comments or the story.
@inappropriate in so many ways go fuck yourself. the student could die and people have already died from the thing that you’re making fun of.
@embarrassed white dude why oh why do you have to use this as an opportunity to vent about your personal feelings about a spec op-ed. a kid almost died. show some fucking decency. you’re not funny/edgy/cool, you’re just being a dick.
@Ummm Does Columbia not teach TrollSpotting anymore?
GET THEE TO BORED@BUTLER
@Anonymous He fell out by accident.
@Anonymous I heard he was nude. Drugs?
@Per the local CBS report he was indeed naked at the time. Also, he hit a scaffold on the third floor, which seems to indicate it was not a suicide attempt.
Watch out for those drugs kids.
@Anonymous Drugs are a helluva drug.
@doesn't seem like it was a suicide attempt
@Genuinely Confused He actively jumped out an 8th floor window. How is that not suicidal?
@Anonymous There’s a lot to the story. A quick blurb doesn’t tell you much about the situation.
@Anonymous No. It sounds like he was high and fell out by accident.
@Emma S. If he was carrying a mattress he would’ve been fine…
@Anonymous but he would have had to pay a fine.
@AndEnnuiGo Columbia is a pressure cooker, especially around finals.
Please take care of yourselves and each other.
@Friend Yea, look out for each other by not letting each other get crazy with drugs. Experimenting is one thing but look what happened here. I felt sympathetic but now that we found out Brandon was on drugs, forget it.
@Anonymous Qureshi?
@Anonymous that’s not how sympathy works, dumbass.
@Berta Lovejoy LE REDDIT ARMY XDXD
upboat if you came here from reddit!!
-Berta lovejoy, promoter of truth, justice, and peace, moderator of /r/vegan