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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/a_romantic_demise on 2024-10-24 05:38:18+00:00.

Technically last night, but I am definitely still feeling the effects of this one.

My building’s fire alarm goes off pretty often. Up until this point, it has always been a false alarm, and I frankly got sick of going out at all hours only to be told that it turned out to be nothing. For context, I live on the eighth floor, and when the fire alarm goes off, no matter what the reason is, the elevators do not work, meaning that if I do go out for the alarm, I have to go down eight flights of stairs. As irresponsible as it is, I really don’t always feel like doing that when I know it’s almost certain to be nothing.

So when the fire alarm went off at about 9:30 last night, I was already settled into bed and in my pajamas, completely not feeling like getting dressed to go down for what I assumed to be another false alarm.

This was proven to be a bad assumption when I heard my RA in the hallway SCREAMING that everyone needed to get out of the building immediately. Obviously, this got me up and moving, and when I opened the door, I smelled smoke and immediately realized that this was not, in fact, a false alarm.

So, I got my cat into her carrier and began my descent. Another thing to note: I have EXTREMELY weak leg joints. Hips, knees, and ankles all tend to fail spectacularly at random. My neighbor from across the hall was going down with me, and all seemed well, despite the slight panic of the fire.

That is, until I got to the last five steps.

I really and truly am not sure if my ankle gave out or if I just slipped, but I fell HARD. And because I was carrying my cat, my first instinct was to make sure I didn’t drop the carrier. This led me to holding her up instead of catching myself, which meant that I absolutely slammed into the steps, and the carrier slammed into my shoulder. My neighbor was concerned, but I waved him off, more embarrassed than anything, and we finished getting out.

Turns out, there was a pretty decent sized fire on the ninth floor right above us. I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but from what I’ve heard, a blanket or something caught fire and it was a pretty serious thing. The firefighters got everything handled, and forty minutes later, we were all back inside. Despite the crazy situation and the smoke smell, I thought I was no worse for wear and my cat was chilling, so I went to bed.

It was not until this morning that I realized the extent of the issues my extremely fast exit of the building and the fall it led to had caused.

While I didn’t feel any pain in the moment, I woke up so, so sore. Both shoulders, my entire left leg from hip to ankle, and my back were aching. I had hoped it would get better over the day, but it really didn’t. I still feel like I got hit by a truck as I lay here in bed typing this. I definitely feel like I’ve learned my lesson on this one, and I am yet again cursing my stupid ankles.

TL;DR: I assumed the fire alarm was a false alarm. It was not, and in my hurry to leave with my cat, I ended up falling down the stairs and I am now extremely sore.