Ballantine jumper healing

An IU student wrote late February in his Internet diary that he hated his life and wanted to die. \nThat student leapt from a window on the eighth floor of Ballantine Hall April 19 and nearly lost his life.\nNow, he lies in a Bloomington Hospital room with two broken legs surrounded by his family. His mother said she wants the Bloomington community to know her son is out of critical care and is recovering.\n"Let the students know that he's doing fine," she said. "He made it out of surgery, and he's improving every day."\nMario Lopez, a senior at Purdue University Calumet and one of the student's best friends, visited him last Saturday.\n"He looked pretty bad at the time," Lopez said. "He was stuck in bed. He was still having trouble breathing. But how would you expect someone who fell eight stories to be doing?"\nLopez said he met the student at middle school in Merrillville, Ind. He said the student's interests include martial arts and horror movies. He also said the student rarely mentioned Bloomington when they talked. \n"It never really came up when we spoke," Lopez said. "He might mention classes or people he knew down there, but he didn't really talk much about it."\nAccording to the student's online diary, he was facing eviction from his dorm in late April. He was also failing most of his classes, had yet to secure student loans and repeatedly referred to himself as a failure.\nLopez said it was difficult to see the signs in the diary. \n"It's hard to tell," Lopez said. "When you look back, you might notice something, but when it's happening, you don't notice. A lot of those things -- I didn't know what he was talking about. He wasn't too forthcoming about that stuff."\nLopez said he noticed the student had been in a strangely happy mood the last time he spoke to him before the incident.\n"He was very calm, really normal," Lopez said. "He was a little too normal. He just seemed kind of cheery -- kind of happy. It was a little out of character."\nIn several recent entries, including the student's last, he repeatedly declared himself in a good mood. In one entry, he even listed the lyrics from the song "You Are My Sunshine." \nBut the morning of April 19, that all changed. Glass shards were strewn across the road as the student heaved a wooden chair through an eighth-story window before he made his ultimate decision. His mother said she hopes witnesses can forget the horror of that day.\n"He's doing really well," she said. "I know that a lot of students saw it, and I don't want them to be traumatized by it." \nLopez said he could not find Ballantine Hall when he visited, but he did see a picture online. He said he was surprised someone could survive such a fall.\n"He got lucky ," he said. "It's a tall building."\n-- Contact senior writer Rick Newkirk at renewkir@indiana.edu.