‘Maybe I was too eager,’ woman who flooded apartment in pole dancing accident says

(NewsNation) — A Houston woman's home workout took an unexpected turn when her dancing pole broke loose, struck a fire sprinkler and flooded her apartment, along with the unit below hers. Asha Gilbert, a Houston-based journalist, said she never considered a sprinkler head to be part of the risk profile. "Of course, you see things online of like people's poles hitting a TV or hitting a wall, but for it to hit the sprinkler was not on my (radar). I couldn't have even fathomed that happening," Gilbert told "Jesse Weber Live." Gilbert and her dog, Zeus, got out safely before firefighters arrived. She said her instinct in the moment was to apologize. "Sorry," Gilbert said, recalling what she told first responders. The water didn't stay contained to Gilbert's unit. It poured into the apartment below, where her neighbor came home to a flooded doorway and a message from maintenance about a "sprinkler incident." Gilbert said she made a point of getting ahead of the story herself. "I apologize to her. I let her know what happened before she saw it online," Gilbert said. Gilbert said she lost most of the items in her living room, though her bedroom was untouched. She has since moved out of the complex. Despite the damage, Gilbert isn't giving up on the hobby, she's just changing the venue. "Pole dancing is a wonderful workout. It's great for your upper body, it's great for your core," Gilbert said. "I would do it again, but probably not at home." She said the pole was a tension model, meant to be secured to a stud and ceiling, and she may have gotten on a little too eagerly. Gilbert, who reactivated her Instagram just three weeks before the incident, said the response has been mostly good-natured. "The response mostly has been positive, people laughing, people telling me they haven't laughed that hard in years," Gilbert said. "A lot of people have told me they're actually moving their poles because of me."