When my friends thought it would be funny to lock me in a tiny supply closet for a few hours before my wedding, they would normally be right. Ya, I would have been pissed off at the time but down the road, it would have been something we laughed about over beers. If only they would have stayed around to hear the thick padded exercise mats tumbling off a shelf pinning me to the ground. If only they would have checked on me before my throat was so hoarse from screaming for help that I could only let out a whisper. If only they’d opened the door for 5 seconds to check on me, I wouldn’t have been trapped for 6 hours.
It all started at my bachelor party, drinking at a private booth with strippers dancing around us to celebrate the death of my single life. I never would have picked a place like that but my soon-to-be brother-in-law Eric thought it would be great for a laugh at his sister’s expense when she found out. This started with a lot of laughs but no one is laughing now.
I was drunk enough that I don’t even know when I told them about my claustrophobia. If I was sober, I would have not given these frat douchebags any ideas of a prank they could pull because I knew how they were. If I hadn’t drunk so much, I probably would have had enough strength to push the mats more to get out, instead of being drained and hungover, unable to do anything.
They had grabbed me in my sleep, throwing me in a trunk before driving me to Eric’s work. With a bag over my head, I was unable to see as they brought me to the room where hell awaited. Thank God they removed the bag from my head or I probably wouldn’t be writing this now. I swung at them as they tried to shut the door, earning me a tumble to the floor as I was pushed back to the sound of laughter and high fives. They never said a word to me before they left, even indicating when they’d be back.
I knew they were stupid, but harmless non the left so I did not fully panic, thinking they would be back any minute. Feeling on the wall I found the light switch, illuminating the room which blinded me until my eyes could focus. The closet was 10x10 ft. with half of it being taken up by a rack full of various gym equipment.
Trying to ease my mind I focused on trying to find something to keep me preoccupied. Scanning the shelves I saw various sized balls, jump ropes, Frisbee, and under those fated mates, 8 ft. up, sat my favourite book; Pet Sematary. At least he knew the one book I could absorb myself into and take my mind off this small place.
This is where everything went to shit. As I climbed up a few shelves to reach the only thing that could keep me sane, the shelving shifted forward, catching itself on the end of the poorly installed anchors. As everything fell off, I gripped on tightly, only to be smacked in the face causing me to fall to the ground by the one thing that never betrayed me before, the book. Yes, it had hurt, I knew I had hit my head hard, but the real pain came a moment later as those blue mats came tumbling down smacking me in the face, trapping me.
Between the pain that just assaulted me and my already post-drunk haze I didn’t figure out what happened until my gasps for breath overshadowed it all. The feeling of weight being pressed on my chest was stopping my lunges from fully inflating causing me to panic. My recurring nightmares about me not being able to breathe that have held my sleep hostage ever since I was a child were coming true. The only difference is while my breath was taken away from my high school bully Damien jumping on my chest in my dreams, it was now from the blue mats that lay under me while he did it.
I tried to shift ever so slightly to allow any chance of taking a full breath but it was no use, it just made the weight press harder down on me and my lungs to expand even less. All I could do now was scream and call for help. Over and over, I tried yelling for anyone I could think of until I was praying for a God I don’t believe in to save me. Nothing but silence answered each call even after my breath was too shallow to yell anymore.
With the lack of air and the only liquid other than alcohol I had drunk in the last 18 hours coming from my blood dripping into my mouth from my obviously broken nose, my head started to cloud up worse than it had 10 shots in the last night. I laid there and prayed for death to take me soon from the absolute worst experience I will ever know.
For hours I lay there, thinking every minute would be my last but the sweet release of death never came. Reminiscing on all the past transgressions I had committed, no matter how small, made me feel this was my hell that I’d never leave again. At one point, I was so into my fogged head that all the pain and the shallow breaths that burned my throat became numb and I stopped feeling anything. My ears didn’t register the crack or my body feel the pain as the metal shelves finally broke free from their crappy install job crashing onto me, knocking me unconscious.
I obviously missed my wedding that day since I was in a two-week coma. I woke up to find out one of my lungs collapsed, I had 6 broken ribs, internal bleeding, my skull was fractured from the fall, and my nose was shattered. Doctors told me I was lucky I had survived, but really if they weren’t so amazing at what they did I probably wouldn’t have.
It took 6 months to be recouped enough to be discharged and when I got out, I promptly married the love of my life who was in that hospital room every day making sure I was ok. As for my brother-in-law and my so-called friends, I decided to not press charges on them since it was an accident but my wife and I have put distance between us. All in all, everything worked out and I am now able to enter closets again after years of intense therapy, so go me.