on his face. The object was an arm, part of a shoulder and a cheek. The hand attached to the arm was moving. The problem was, it was moving on the surface of what was obviously still-setting concrete. Someone had fallen into this elevator shaft and had landed on the just-poured concrete base. The person was drowning in concrete.
I gazed dumbly into the shaft for a moment and began to think. How to reach this person? There were shadowed areas in what must be the entry for each floor’s elevator entrance, but they were boarded shut. It would take too much time to run back down to the first floor and try to find something to pry those boards loose.
What then?
I looked around frantically and my eyes lit on a big coil of rope bunched over and around some of the lumber. I grabbed Tom’s hand and yanked him toward the rope. Seconds counted. If the person wasn’t pulled out soon, he or she was surely dead.
Tom let go of my hand as I started to tug on the rope. He yelled, “Are you crazy? We need to get help.” He quickly dialed the campus emergency number and efficiently gave our location and a description of this tragedy in the making.
I paid him little attention. By now I had freed the rope where it had been looped around the lumber and I was pulling it over toward the shaft.
“Help won’t come in time,” I puffed as I continued to tug on the heavy rope. It had bits of concrete encrusted on it and it was unbelievably rough and stiff in my hands. I thrust a coil of it into Tom’s unwilling arms.
“Pull!” I grabbed the rope further down and yanked. As it uncoiled it was clear it was very long. But was it long enough? I estimated 3 floors at perhaps more than 20 feet per floor. Maybe. Maybe it would reach.
I pulled the end over to the closest pillar and started looping it around. I swore as my long dress nearly tripped me up. I’d already lost the cape somewhere. I made a double loop and a slipknot. I pulled on the tied rope and it held. I went over to try to see down into the shaft. Without Tom’s cell phone light, it was a black hole. Tom couldn’t hold his cell phone light on me and also hold the rope. I frantically looked around again. About 25 feet away I saw a tripod with two work lights. I ran over. It appeared to be cordless. Battery maybe. I turned it on. Bright light blazed out. Great. I picked it up and hurried back. I positioned it so the lights pointed down into the shaft. I took a quick look. The shoulder had disappeared. The fingers on the hand were still moving.
I handed part of the rope to Tom.
“Lower me down as fast as you can manage. If I can reach the arm, I’ll tie the rope around it. There’s an opening about two or three feet from the bottom. You can’t drag us both up. I’ll climb in the opening and wait.”
“No, Kristin,” Tom said firmly. “I’ll do it.”
I faced him and looked directly into his face.
“Have you ever rappelled?”
“No.” Tom looked back unflinchingly at me. “But look at how you’re dressed. I need to do it.”
I realized he was right. Well, about how I was dressed. I had already kicked off my shoes. I pulled down the zipper of my dress, shrugged it off my shoulders and it fell to the floor with a clatter of scattering beads. I kicked it aside and looked back up at Tom. I was wearing only panty hose and a teddy. Well, this was not the way I had imagined undressing for Tom. Too bad.
“I have rappelled. Lots. Besides you’re stronger in your upper body than I am. You need to work the rope. Wrap it around your waist twice and brace yourself on the pillar.”
I have to say this for surgery. It trains people to think quickly in life and death situations and Tom didn’t argue any more. His face drew in on itself and he focused on the task. He moved to the pillar and wrapped the heavy rope around his dinner jacket.
I made a loop in the rope around my waist and padded to the edge of the shaft in my stocking feet, dragging the rest of the rope behind me. My eyes fell on the construction helmet I’d dropped in my haste to get the rope. What the heck. I reached over, picked it up and slapped it on my head, fastening the strap below my chin. I turned back toward the shaft and called out to Tom.
“Let out about 3 feet at a time. We don’t have time for a slower descent. I’m ready now.”
I fit my body under the two-by-four, turned my back to the shaft and leaned back. As I went over the edge with the slackened rope I saw Tom’s pale and intense face watching me.
A second later the rope slackened again and I bent my knees and pushed out from the wall. The surface was pitted and pockmarked with recently poured concrete and the soles of my feet burned. My hose had already shredded. Again the rope slackened and again I pushed out. Too much rope this time. I skidded and missed the wall with my feet as I came back in. I hit the wall and the helmet took the brunt of the blow that would have otherwise probably broken my nose. What do you know? These helmets had been an excellent idea after all. Despite its protection, however, I’d had the wind briefly knocked out of me. I scrambled to regain my footing and lean back out. My bare feet could get little purchase on the wall and I scrabbled in vain for what seemed like minutes until I had my balance again. Good thing. Just as I got my footing, Tom let out another length of rope. I jumped and landed, this time with my feet hitting the wall. I jumped, landed, jumped, landed. I looked down on the next landing. I’d come a fairly long way. I needed another 6 feet and I could reach.
The work light was doing its job, though it made looking up difficult. Looking down I could still see part of the hand on the congealing surface, but it was still, as though imprinting the jellied skin like some hideous parody of the plaster molds the kids had made of their hands in kindergarten.
Two more jumps and I was hovering about a foot above where the body had landed. My hands burned from the rough rope, but this would not be a good time to lose my grip or I’d fall into the same suffocating muck.
I shouted up to Tom to stop letting out rope. I hoped to hell he heard me.
I was now almost horizontal to the surface and above the arm. I had to tie the rope around the person’s wrist with one hand while not losing my grip on my part of the rope with the other. I felt the rope around my waist. It seemed secure. I let go with one hand and picked up the trailing end of the rope. We’d cut it close with this rope. There wasn’t much left.
I made a loop and tried to lasso the hand as it sank deeper into the sludge. This wasn’t working. I needed two hands. Could I risk letting go with both hands for a second? Would the coil around my waist hold me? It was now or never. I was going to have to dig the hand out of the surface as it was.
I let go with my other hand and reached into the slimy concrete. I felt the hand. It was freezing cold. I held on to it with my left and wrapped the rope around the wrist with my right. I had her. For it was a her. The hand I held above the surface was manicured with long red nails and several rings. Rings that had scratched me when I’d reached under the surface to grab the hand. I tried to make a secure knot and sickeningly felt myself slide closer to the surface. My torso was now only inches from the glistening veneer that appeared to be a floor but was really a death trap. If I slid further, the floor would swallow me whole.
“Pull up!” I shouted as loud as I could. “Pull up about twelve inches.” I was now about fifty feet below where Tom was straining with the rope and the part looped around my waist was tightening. My thin teddy had already shredded and the rope was cutting directly into my skin.
There was no response. I frantically pulled the knot tight around
