Into the Waters 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Georgian survives stupid roof trick at Ala. beach
By ALAN JUDD
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
It was, Mark Waters says, "a stupid thing."
Waters, who owns a small industrial supply company in Buford, was vacationing on an Alabama beach last week when he locked himself out of his condo. The condo's security guards were slow to respond when he asked for help. So Waters figured his best bet would be to go to the roof of the 14-story building and shinny down to his 10th-floor balcony.
As he says, a stupid thing.
oments after cleaving himself to the face of the 200-foot-high structure, Waters lost his grip and plummeted, tumbling head over heels into 4 feet of water in the swimming pool below.
Waters, 40, suffered only three broken ribs, a punctured lung and some nasty bruises.
"A few feet either way," said John Mudra, a police spokesman in Orange Beach, Ala., a small town near Gulf Shores, "and that would have been it."
The episode started about 6:30 p.m. June 28, police said. Waters had been on the beach with his wife and two young children. He left them behind to get some food and return to the condo, only to discover he was locked out.
"One foolish thing led to another," Waters said Thursday from his hospital room in Pensacola. "You think you're invincible. You think, 'I can do that.' "
Perturbed by the security guards' indifference to his problem, he went to the roof and peered over the side. He thought he could climb down, balcony by balcony, to his condo. As soon as he climbed over the lip of the roof, though, he realized he couldn't reach the first balcony. "I tried to hang on as long as I could," he said, but he soon lost his grip.
"I was praying all the way down," Waters said. "I was really kind of hoping I would pass out. But I didn't. I remember feeling great when I felt water."
"It was loud," a witness, Teresa Ellash of Cincinnati, told The Mobile Register. "Sounded like a refrigerator hit. More of a boom than a splash."
Orange Beach police said Waters had been drinking, but officers did not check his blood alcohol content after the accident.
"Alcohol definitely was a factor," Mudra said Thursday. "We get the kids doing it. This guy should have known better."
Waters declined to discuss how much he had drunk.
But he said: "We all do foolish things. I don't know if I would have attempted what I attempted or not."
Foolish or not, Waters and his wife appreciate how lucky he is.
"It's just a blessing," Debbie Waters said. "We're thankful he's here."
"God must have some reason for me to be here," her husband said. "I shouldn't be alive."
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© 2002 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Submitted on 07/05/2002
Submitted by:
John Bulter
Reference:
AJC 7/5/02
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
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