Bouncers: here for your safety?

It was a typical Thursday night with my best friend from back home. She came up for the week specifically so I could show her some highlights of my uni life, with a particular (and obvious) focus on clubbing and going out. Thursday night meant one thing, and one thing only – Smack. Little did I know what the night had in-store for us.

There they stood, arms folded tightly across their puffed-out chests, grimacing as they impatiently grabbed our IDs, and then gestured for us to go inside. Bouncers: the kind of people who look down on you like a piece of meat; the kind of people who you wouldn’t want to mess with.

The night was in full-swing; a few dance moves here, a few dance moves there. Gesturing to go to the downstairs room, my friend queued up while I went to get drinks from the nearby bar. Being £2 short meant I had to walk the extremely long and treacherous distance of one metre to get the change from my bag.

Bouncers: the kind of people who look down on you like a piece of meat; the kind of people who you wouldn’t want to mess with.

Lo and behold, here comes the ‘security guard’ to instigate. How ironic is it that the word ‘security guard’ doesn’t actually provide any security to innocent individuals who need it, and instead use it to increase their ego? The intense and absolutely appalling moment that was next to follow is something that will haunt my friend and I for a long long time to come. The bouncer held a tight grip around my arm as he quite literally dragged me across the club. This is not only shocking, but also extremely painful.

Despite telling him god-knows how many times that he was hurting me, and that I would happily walk out on my own free will, he continued. Another one then came, physically picking up my friend and not just carrying her, but throwing her down the stairs. I had no idea what to do. How could an actual human being have the capacity to treat people like animals, let alone doing so with such pride and self-satisfaction?

Another one then came, physically picking up my friend and not just carrying her, but throwing her down the stairs.

As an individual susceptible to extreme panic attacks, this awful ordeal initiated a relapse. No matter how hard I tried to stop it, or to say that I couldn’t breathe and that I needed help, he continued to drag me. Then, finally, he shoved me onto the ground outside. I eventually came round, hyperventilating, to find myself lying in a cold puddle in the pouring rain with security guards surrounding me, shouting and actually yelling at me to “stop pretending” and to “move out the way”. I am still in complete and utter shock.

Eventually, after an hour of being unable to breathe, an ambulance was called and I was given treatment to regulate my breathing and oxygen levels. However, one paramedic, after being told by the security guards that I was “just drunk and pretending”, grabbed my left shoulder and rolled me off the bed. I lay there on the ambulance floor in intense agony and distress, wondering how this was even possible. Even now, two months later, I still have the bruises.

Even now, two months later, I still have the bruises.

Bouncers are the kind of people who you wouldn’t want to mess with. They are the kind of people who can somehow treat you like absolute shit and yet get away with it because they’re ‘security guards’. This not okay. I’m 100% sure my friend and I are not the only ones who have experienced such a horrifying and ghastly experience, purely and simply as a result of bouncers.

Bex Millman