Friends and family have reason to cheer for UC Berkeley freshman and men’s crew team member Andrew Crowley, who is making a slow but steady recovery after falling from a campus fraternity house a week and a half ago.

Crowley is currently being treated at Highland General Hospital in Oakland for severe head trauma after falling off the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, also known as Fiji, Feb. 26.

Immediately before his fall, Crowley was trying to scale down the exterior of the building by climbing a drain pipe that runs vertically to the roof of the three-story building, according to Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, spokesperson for the Berkeley Police Department. Crowley was near the third floor of the building when the pipe separated from the wall and he fell backwards, Kusmiss said in an email.

Crowley showed signs of alcohol intoxication, according to Kusmiss.

According to a blog apparently run by his family, Crowley has been transferred from the hospital’s intensive-care unit to the step-down unit and has been improving neurologically and physically since he was taken off a chemically-induced coma and breathing tubes.

On March 3 — which the family titles “Day 7” on the blog — Crowley was able to get out of bed and perform basic motor functions, according to the blog.

“Things have settled into some kind of routine here,” a blog entry dated March 4 reads. “It is kind of like planting a garden and then everyday there are some small changes, a little new shoot here, a little flower here … it is all about the patience and the care, I suppose.”

In a mass email sent to students March 6, PartySafe@Cal Assistant Coordinator Issac Acosta alluded to Crowley as a cautionary tale for students considering partying for St. Patrick’s Day and Spring Break.

“We all need to be ready to take personal responsibility (and) do something about risky drinking, behavior and situations we notice,” Acosta said in the email.

Sill, throughout the posts, parents Marcia and Stephen Crowley expressed optimism about their son’s recovery.

“Andrew does some surprising things … says things that we wouldn’t expect, remembers events that we had forgotten, and makes us laugh,” reads the March 4 entry.