I mentioned that when we built the add-on to our trailer that we had
an 8 foot square loft that was about eight feet off the floor. This
loft was accessed by a ladder made out of 3/4” pipe that had been
drilled through a 4x4 making a ladder that would cut your foot just
about in half as you tried to climb it in bare feet. The loft itself
had not a single shred of safety device at the top it was just a
carpeted platform in the sky with a strait drop off of one edge. The
edge with the drop had a water-bed indirectly below it but well
within the jumping range of kids over about six, never younger. We
had been jumping off the loft pretty much since it was installed with
no problem but we always kept it on the down low as to not unduly tax
my parent's fragile sense of safety. When my parents left for another
trip they had a neighbor girl come and watch us for a couple of days
she was cute and fun and knew all about going out with people and
stuff like that so we did not fight her authority because in mainly
consisted of hanging out with us and talking. She was not a real
strict disciplinarian and that usually keeps the fights to a minimum,
everything falls apart, of course but at least it happens in peace.
One morning we were up in the loft jumping off onto my parent's bed
and just hanging out and having a good time when my older sister and
younger brother and I left to go play leaving only my little sister
to stay with the baby sister. I was actually needed on some important
candy getting business up at the local pharmacy and was walking back
chore completed and when I turned down my street I was passed by an
ambulance and I actually thought, “That would be weird if they
turned into my house.” They did, and I started running as fast as I
could to cover the last two blocks home. I ran in and my little
sister was being put on a stretcher and getting her head strapped
down to be loaded into the ambulance. I was in a panic and the poor
neighbor girl was hysterical and sobbing. She was telling the
paramedics that my six-year-old sister had attempted a flip while
jumping off the loft, had slipped and fallen onto the edge of the
water bed and broken the bed and maybe herself. They took my sister
into the emergency room where she told everyone that we had
permission to jump off of the loft and our parents let us do it all
the time which was naturally shocking to hear about the gross neglect
we had endured and they were also wondering why four kids were home
with no parents with only a 16 year-old girl watching them. It looked
bad because it was bad. We had a loft with no safety precaution at
all and we were alone with a girl much to young for any kind of
long-term babysitting. My grandmother, 'Other-Mother', luckily only
lived twenty minutes away and came to the rescue she got the hospital
all squared away and told the concerned parties that she would take
us and take care of us until my parents got home. This was exactly
her type of thing she would have turned down the job of watching us
but the chance to be self righteous was right up her psychological
alley. My wounded sister was not hurt badly, she just had some
bruised ribs but she played it up for the pampering. She was also
telling everyone that would listen that my parents let us jump off of
the loft all of the time and that her older siblings taught her to
jump off and to do flips. My parents came home and were furious about
the situation for which they were at least entirely responsible. My
dad had never put a rail or wall up, they had a immature babysitter,
and he blamed my brother and sister and I for, 'Teaching and
encouraging your sister to jump.' We protested that we had always
told her never to jump and that none of us were actually there at the
time and that no one had ever tried a flip before she thought it
would be a cool trick. He wouldn't hear of it and sentenced us to a
long list of chores that included some of the perpetual
organizational jobs we had around our mass of stuff. We had to clean
out the cellar and the the front house for weeks without pay, and we
were grounded all because an incompetent babysitter let my little
sister try and do a flip off of a loft onto a water bed.. I am still
angry at the injustice. My dad did put up a rail and then to jump off
the loft you had to walk out in front of the rail holding on
backwards to the rung. That did keep the idiots off and left it to
the pros. He later installed a wall instead of a rail and you would
have to jump 12 feet to reach the bed now. Not worth it.
