Student injured during night out at the Spoke

It wasn’t exactly the most successful pick-up attempt the Spoke has ever seen.

Rick McGhie’s regular weekly performance was interrupted around midnight Wednesday night, when an unidentified student briefly lost consciousness following a dance move gone awry.

“He basically tried to pick up a girl really high in the air, and she fell on him, and he fell backwards and he hit his head,” Tony Ayala, vice-president finance for the University Students’ Council, explained. The injured student’s dance partner was unhurt.

Paramedics from the Student Emergency Response Team responded to the scene, and the student was taken to University Hospital in an ambulance—though according to Ayala, he was able to walk out on his own.

Representatives from SERT declined to comment, citing patient confidentiality.

McGhie was leading a rousing sing-along to “Hey Jude” when his set was put on hold, as a crowd of onlookers gathered around the student. Though the performance was cut short, McGhie had already played crowd favourites such as “American Pie” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” so patrons were not left entirely without their Rick’s fix.

Vanessa Rocca, a fourth-year kinesiology student, was at the Spoke Wednesday night.

“I left just as the ambulance got there, so all I saw was the guy laying on the ground with his hands over his face and paramedics around him,” she said. “I didn’t want to stick around because of how many people were tending to him, but when I got outside I saw another ambulance and a police car and I’m pretty sure a fire truck as well.”

Though unusual, the incident was not unheard of for the Spoke—Ayala said ambulances are typically called “a few times a year.”

“From all reports that I’ve been getting, it was handled correctly,” Ayala said. “[SERT] came within their call time, they called the ambulance and then he moved on. We followed our procedures, and we hope that the student is well.”