This is terribly sad.

High-spirited hijinks at a halloween party ended in horror for friends of a south suburban woman who plunged four floors to her death in an accident at a downtown Chicago hotel Saturday night.

Elementary school teacher Megan Duskey, 23, was attempting to slide down a railing on the mezzanine at the Palmer House Hilton, 17 East Monroe, when she lost her balance and fell over the edge to the basement level about 10:30 p.m., police said.

Duskey taught special education classes at Orville T. Bright Elementary School on the far South Side and was a “caring, energetic person who was full of life and eager to help others and make a difference in the world,” her family said.

She was partying with friends at the “Haunted Hotel Ball” — a costume party for more than 2,000 revelers — and was dressed in the yellow and black costume of the comic book superhero the Silver Spectre when she died, authorities said.

{Source}

When I was a freshman in high school, I was walking downstairs from the third floor of the school with a couple of friends when one of them, a very tall guy with a low center of balance, decided to slide down the banister between two landings. One second, we’re all chatting amicably. The next, he was toppling backward and fell through the opening in the stairwell and crashed with a breathtaking thud against the concrete floor three stories below.

We stared down at him from above and he looked dead. He was knocked unconscious and spent the day in the hospital, but apart from some bad bruising on his face and arms, he was, luckily, fine. It was one of the scariest things for which I have ever been present.

Do not slide down stair banisters, people. Do not do it.