Stop, Drop and Roll?

 I'd like to take a minute to address something rather ironic::  home safety assessments.  While their purpose may be rather straightforward,  to ensure that I can live safely in my house, wherever that may be, I find the execution of these assessments and the evacuation plans associated with them rather funny.

 You see, back when I started having people from an agency come to help me out several years ago, the supervisors would always do a safety assessment to make sure that there were 2 usable exits inside the home in case of an emergency. Back in the day, when we had only one (because the windows either didn't open, or weren't big enough to push me through. The agency tried  to argue at the time  that it wasn't safe for people to come assist me. We argued back with “what are you gonna do, I live here.” They never tried that one again.

Fast forward about 8 years to the land of lovely college dorm/apartment living. Although the staff have been great at otherwise addressing my  accessibility needs, at the time I moved in,  there was not a new building with an accessible unit on the ground floor. Needless to say, this pissed off several of my family members  for many valid reasons, most of them going back to my ability to exit  in  an emergency. I won't say where, but I would be living on an upper floor of  a high-rise building for the next 2 years, and then subsequently transitioning to a very similar one, where I am right now.  Within minutes  of moving in, my family and I were informed of the emergency plan: get out of the room and…… wait. That's right, protocol is to wait in the landing of the closest stairwell until the paramedics come up to get me,  as they are the only ones “certified”  enough to  carry me downstairs if the elevators  are  not working. Yes, I know I'm just a huge liability for the building, but I thought there was this thing called the good Samaritan law that  protects  the 25,000 random people who ask if they can help in these situations  as I'm waiting ever so patiently in the stairwell.

 See, this takes me back. About 6 years to be exact. My middle school had 2 floors, and my classes were pretty much divided half-and-half. Not to mention they wouldn't give me a key to the elevator, but that's another story. Being that I was on the 2nd floor for about half of the day, naturally they had to devise  this foolproof fire escape plan. Let me tell you what it consisted of:
 1st, there was me, who would be transported down the 2 flights of stairs in a Hoyer sling, with a different person holding each corner. In front of these  four were 2 additional people to walk in front of them, clear the hallways, and make sure they didn't fall. A seventh person, ideally the nurse, was supposed to retrieve a spare manual chair from her office and put it at the bottom of the stairs for me to be deposited into. I remember running several drills of this routine, and basically, by the time everybody would've been properly assembled, I would have burned to a crisp if it were a real fire, which myself and my aide understood very clearly.

 So,  given this new “wait and see” policy that was obviously employed for a CYOA type  purpose, I complied  with instructions to stay put during the drills and not evacuate. This worked, except for when, on one occasion, the fire marshal actually didn't come up all the stairwells to  verify that I, the disabled resident, was not waiting on my assigned stairwell. Because of this, I didn't know if there was an actual evacuation or just somebody being stupid. Needless to say, the situation turned out not to be serious, but it leads me to question what would happen if next time I just happen to agree to let 2 of those   handsome  football players carry me down just to see what happens...

 I won't  go into detail here,  but another reason why  this policy needs to have a more practical solution can best be summed up in the outcome of another incident by 6 words of one of the staff members on duty at 2 AM: “whoops sorry, I forgot about you.” Needless to say I had some  oh so kind words with him and the manager for that one!  While I will  admit that I need to make these compromises because I choose to live in a unit that suits my needs rather than one that doesn't on the ground floor, I'm saying there needs to be more dialogue about a faster, practical way to get to the person that needs help, while using the resources available, say, like, the 200  other residents of the building. Because, you know, there is a chance that I just might want to stop, drop, and roll out of the building just like everyone else.