Attack of the killer clock!
November 25, 2002 ~ 8:44 p.m.
A student saved my life today. Or definitely saved me fifty stitches to the head.
Not only do I have to recruit invigilators for examinations as part of my job, I sometimes have to help supervise the exams myself. And so this morning, I helped the others put the papers and pencils on the desks, put the clock up and brought the students in to take their tests.
Now when I say �put the clock up,� I am referring to the very narrow ridge that runs along the wall above the stage, and this is what we normally rest the large, office-style clock on. When put up on one of these ledges, the clock is high enough for everyone in the hall to see. I remember the first time I invigilated at an exam last spring, when I was new to the job, thinking, �no way is that clock going to stay up there.� Much to my surprise, all spring and summer long, it always stayed up. Today, however, my initial assessment came back to haunt me.
About an hour into the exam, a student � who looked remarkably like a young Stephen King � raised his hand, so I hopped off the stage and walked down to his desk. He needed to go to the toilet, so I led him out of the auditorium. We hadn�t gone three steps when I heard a horrible explosion behind me. I thought for a terrified second that somebody had set off a firework in the hall. The terrible sound of hard plastic hitting hard wood and the roar of crashing glass was, of course, amplified, as all big sounds are in the dull echo effect of a large auditorium. But even if that clock had dropped on the sidewalk outside, it still would have been noteworthy.
The glass was cleared away, the dead clock given a temporary resting place at the far end of the stage, my student went to the loo, and business carried on as normal, the only sound echoing through the hall being the small scratching sounds of 100 pencils in use.
It was only much later when I realized the true enormity of what had actually occurred. I had been sitting on the part of the stage directly under that clock. If that student hadn�t called me away from my post when he did, I would have had five pounds worth of heavy glass and plastic come crashing upon my head from a height of six or seven feet. And while I am not so easily floored, by human being or alcohol, that clock, friends, would have knocked me cold.
Or seriously injured me.
Or killed me. If it had hit me just right, I have no doubts this story would have had to be related by someone other than your favorite dragon of the night.
Granted, if I was going to end up in critical condition, I could not have been in a more advantageous location. These were medical school exams and Charing Cross Hospital was just 300 feet from the auditorium. If you are going to have an emergency on your hands, location like this certainly helps the situation.
But instead of spending one or several nights in hospital, having sutures applied to my face and suffering from concussion, amnesia or delirium, I am sitting comfortably at home with a tall can of beer and living an otherwise perfectly normal Monday night.
All thanks to that beautiful, beautiful student. And to that young man, I say this: You haven�t even earned your medical degree yet, and already you�ve saved a life. What a fine doctor you�ll turn out to be!
The nightdragon, for his part, will practice a little more common sense from now on, such as not sitting under large and precariously perched clocks. Not that, I suppose, this will be a problem. From now on, that clock will sit on a chair on the stage. Won�t give it as much height as the ledge, but hey � height ain�t everything.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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