NYU Student Has Worst Drunk Wake Up Of All Time, Literally Debated Cutting His Arm Off

Rob Fox12 years ago

This headline might be slightly misleading. I don’t actually know if Asher Vongtau, the NYU sophomore who somehow became wedged into a 12-inch space between two buildings in New York, was drunk or not. But, really, common sense tells us the dude was hammered. You don’t do that shit sober. You certainly don’t do that shit sober in college, and it’s even less likely to happen soberly at 7am on a Saturday morning, when you’re still awake from the Friday night before. Nobody almost dies like this after an all night X-Box session. If anything all that Mountain Dew would have allowed Vongtau to claw his way up the crevice like some sort of demon possessed ADD kid scuttling to his upstairs playroom. Nope, this sounds like the work of poorly mixed Congress Vodka, or maybe an excessive amount of ice beer.

From The New York Times:

The weekend started like a typical one for a college student, with a night of partying on Friday. After going out, Mr. Vongtau went to the 10th-floor dorm room that another student, Michael Yablon, shared with three roommates at 80 Lafayette Street.

Mr. Yablon, Mr. Vongtau and another friend were still awake when the sun came up.

At around 7 a.m., Mr. Vongtau left the room “to get some fresh air,” Mr. Yablon said.

What a nightmare scenario. I’ve often sat and reflected on my own wildly dangerous alcoholism and wondered how I haven’t awoken in worse places, and by that I mean worse places than jail, where I’ve already done the old stretch-and-yawn before realizing a series of unremembered choices had replaced my roommate, or whatever poor girl I was trying to lay blackout game on, with a grizzled, hacking crack addict. At this point, I’m well on my way to waking up buried alive in a coffin, with no idea how I got there, and unable to Uma Thurman my way out (not for a lack of trying). The most pathetic part is that I’d still spend the first 12 of what would probably be the last 48 hours of my life sleeping off that hangover inside of the coffin.

All of that is to say that waking up like Asher Vongtau is something anyone who’s ever taken straight pulls from a tequila bottle before sunset should fear. You never know when you’re going to take a grievous misstep, either socially or literally, and end up in a tight spot.

What’s worse is that Vongtau was so delirious (morning drunk?) that he actually thought about cutting off his arm to escape, which is an especially terrible idea because he didn’t even have a knife, well, that and the fact that it wouldn’t have helped at all. Nothing was pinning him down, he was just stuck. Sobering up while unnecessarily eating your own arm off would be the absolute worst.

From the New York Post:

The NYU student who was trapped for a day and a half in a tiny building crevice considered pulling a “127 Hours” — chopping his arm off the free himself just like the mountain climber made famous in the James Franco flick.

I’m so terribly certain that one day I’m going to wake up drunk, inexplicably in a toolshed, assume I’m in a real life Saw scenario, grab a rusty hacksaw, then cut off my foot and start screaming, “Are you happy!?!? Can I go now, you sick bastard!!! I PLAYED YOUR GAME,” before one of my friends just opens the door and asks where the fuck I’ve been.

Vongtau still isn’t sure how he ended up stuck between two buildings, presumably the same way most people “aren’t sure” how they got herpes. C’mon, pal. You’ve got a pretty good idea.

[via NY Post, and The New York Times]

Photo via NY Post