Julianna Mariani ‘24

Eggplant Editor

For this week’s Spire article, I had the pleasure of interviewing a College of the Holy Cross freshman who recently had an untimely encounter with the steps of Clark. Sandra Der was on her way to her only in-person class of the semester when the mishap occurred. 

“I was in a bit of a rush to meet my friend so I was hurrying down the steps outside my dorm when I wiped out.”

When asked if she fell “forward or backward” she answered with “a little bit of both.” 

No one was around to see it happen though, which was a win in Der’s book. She claims that if her friend had turned the corner just a moment earlier she would have witnessed the incident and laughed her head off. The friend (who politely asked to remain anonymous) attested to this by saying, “Yes, I would have thought it was the funniest thing.” After all, what good are friends if they don’t laugh a little after you fall before helping you back up. 

What’s ironic though, is the timing of this fall. We all remember that night when the entire campus was a sheet of black ice. In fact, I heard of quite a few people who fell that night. But on that beautiful spring morning, with no ice in sight, Sandra Der went sprawling. She was a real trooper though, didn’t even complain of the pain until after she had walked on it for three hours. To class, to Kimball, to the Jo, and back to Clark. For such a small campus, we seem to have done a great job in making sure the freshmen get a fantastic amount of walking in every day. No freshman fifteen on this hill, that’s for sure! 

After blowing her ankle up to the size of a small balloon, Der decided it was time to visit the lovely staff at Health Services. She declined the use of a friend’s sled (left over from the snow), and courageously trekked down to Loyola on her ankle once again. During the visit she was informed that she had suffered a terrible sprain and would have to go to the hospital for x-rays if the swelling didn’t go down. She was graciously given an ‘unused’ boot and a decent amount of ice packs and was sent on her way. 

“They even offered transportation services, but I declined, much to my friends’ dismay,” Der commented. She further explained by saying her friends would have enjoyed the free transportation more than she would have.

When asked why she didn’t receive crutches, Der responded by quoting the nurse practitioner: “Crutches are useless on this campus.” 

Evidently, going to school on a ‘mountain’ has its pros and cons. 

Thankfully, Sandra Der has since recovered from her fall and doesn’t even have to suffer the embarrassment of a boot anymore, which is “worse than having a sprained ankle” in her humble opinion.