Out of all the years I have worked in stadiums or events in the city, the Bears game yesterday was the worst day I have ever worked to date. Everything just got worse as the day went on. There were moments where things seemed to get better but the next bad thing would just be worse than the last one. Everything was just so unpredictable. No one saw anything coming.
The day started out better than most. My dad and I got to the stadium at about 11:30 and checked in fairly quick as usual. We got inside and got settled. Got ready for our meeting which started a little late (big surprise). During the meeting, I was told that there would be a VIP coming to the game. One of President Obama's cabinet members and his father. After our supervisor meeting, which was short, we all went to our meeting places. The special service meeting went fairly quick. There was nothing new and no adjustments that we had make. Once the gates opened, everything started smoothly. No problems, only a couple ticket issues but nothing major.
About 2 hours after the game opened, I got a call to pick someone up in the first aid station at gate 17 and bring them to their seats. The person I picked up was not drunk. What happened was that this guest required a wheelchair and as he was being pushed, the front small wheels got caught in a rubber strip that are in the ground. Those wheels stopped moving but the rest of the chair didn't. The guest ended up falling out of the chair and hitting his head on the ground. When I was bringing him up to his seat, I made sure to avoid all of the rubber strips as to be sure that the guest would not fall out of the chair a second time.
The next injury was easily worse. Mostly because there was a lot of blood. A quest was walking into the stadium tripped over a rubber "speed bump" that line certain areas of the stadium. They are really random and im not quite sure what they are there for. When this guy tripped he had a fight with the ground and his face. The ground won obviously but the guy was ok in the end. He just had one really bad bloody nose.
The event that capped the night happened during half time. It's all over the news and you have probably heard about it already. During half time, someone committed suicide. I didn't see the guy jump. All I saw was people running over to the railing and looking over and all of the monterrey security in the area running over and pushing everyone back. I quickly ran over to where all the commotion was and looked over after one of the monterrey security guards told me what happened. When I found out what happened I was shocked. I didn't know what to do but I knew I had to do something. So I asked one of the monterrey supervisors what needed to be done. I was told to get all of the fans off of the colonnade platform and not to let anyone up. That is exactly what I did and I had almost all of the people in special services come up to the 400 level colonnades to assist. I had to call our dispatch and ask for extra people to come help assist a few times. After about 20 minutes, I had all of the special service people that were up there helping and a few of the bears fan service employees helping each take a stair case and not let anyone up onto the platform. It was a bit of a challenge at first because a couple of the guys that I had posted at a stair case kept going over to the railing to look and I had to keep telling them to get back to their spots. We were all tied up at the colonnades for a while. We were not allowed to leave until we got the ok to and they blocked the area off with crime scene tape. Everyone in special services, including myself, could've gotten stuck there for the entire night. It would've been really bad if we al got stuck there because our group was understaffed and we had a lot of pick-ups to do. Thankfully, myself and another supervisor in our group thought on our toes. We went up to the 400 grandstands and pulled ushers from the seating area and switched them out with the people in special services that were standing at the staircases.
The whole suicide experience for me had a bit of an impact on me. The rest of the day I was just in shock. I could not believe that I was right next to someone who just committed suicide. I mean, I know people that committed suicide before but this is different. I was actually in the area when the person did it. I had no idea what to do or say after I left the game. It was and has been on my mind. Today has been better but every time I think about it I get the same feeling like oh my gosh. Did that really happen? I think this might stay with me for a very very long time.
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