My boss is dead in my attic

A friend commented about having a company come out and add insulation and a vapor barrier to his attic last week. Since the temperature was in triple digits all that time I marveled that anyone could go into an attic and survive. Which reminded me of the day I thought my boss died in my attic.

This was back during the great remodeling - I had decided that the time was right to add another phone line and phone jacks in areas not previously wired. My boss, experienced in these matters, volunteered to come by on a Saturday morning and pull this new cable and make the drops. It was early Fall and still hot in Texas, but the plan was to get on it before it got unbearable. That was the plan, but John had other things to take care off and it was nearly noon before he showed up. Nevertheless, he was game and gathered his tools and cable and climbed up into the attic.

The area that needed the wiring was, of course, in the back part of the house, so John had to enter in the garage area, then make his way all across the front of the house to the far end - beyond the front hallway, then turn left and make his way in the crawl space to the back bedroom area. I made that trip once or twice in my younger days, and it's a very tight, very cramped journey.

My role was to stand on the steps leading up to the attic and feed the extension cord and the phone cables into the space as John pulled them along. All went well as he got to the far end and turned the corner out of sight, and then for a bit longer. Then there was no more pull on the cables. John was stopped - short of his goal. I called out, but got no response. I yelled out! And got no response. I screamed bloody murder loud! And still got no response. No movement. No response. No John.

I am thinking, "My boss has just collapsed and died from the heat in my attic! How are we going to get him out? EMS is going to have to chop a hole in the roof to get his body out of my attic! How am I going to explain this to the rest of the company on Monday morning?"

I ran into the house yelling for Barbara to call 911 - John was dead in the attic! She said, "I can hear him. He's not dead." Just to be certain, she walked to the back bedroom and called out to John, who answered her!

To make a long story short, I don't think I need additional insulation in my attic. At least there's enough to swallow up any sound traveling from one end to the other. John never heard any of my yelling - he could only hear us if we yelled up at the ceiling a few feet away. He finished his task, crawled out, and went home - no worse for his experience.

But I'm pretty certain if it is 105 degrees, like it has been here all last week, one should not go into an attic. At least not my attic.