<p>This is a sad story and my thoughts and prayers are with the student and his family. </p>
<p>However, here’s something that I don’t get. The accident happened on Saturday night (around 9:30 PM according to another article) yet it seems that the local police weren’t notified/didn’t find out until Monday? Is this typical of how things are handled on college campuses?</p>
<p>Hard to know - perhaps the weekend staff reported the incident to the school administration on Monday morning and they determined that the town police needed to be called.</p>
<p>I am sure the school administration was notified immediately but perhaps didn’t think it was necessary to inform the police as there was nothing which indicated it was due to any criminal behavior. What I heard from my son was the kid was sliding down the railing and fell down the stair well(from the 4th floor.) My first reaction when he told me was that the kid was drunk but my son (a soph and not a friend of the boy) said he wasn’t.</p>
<p>According to the report, the police are investingating due to the seriousness of the injury. There may be some unwritten “rules” as to when the police are called in an incident and when they are not. I would think that in any borderline cases, the police should have been called by the college authorities as soon as possible and in this case there was a probably a “miss”.</p>
<p>A friends son died from a fall while at college. He was drunk as were all of those around him. He did not appear hurt and no one noticed when he fell asleep on a sofa, as this sort of thing was within very normal behavior. It wasn’t till late afternoon the next day, that someone notices something was not right, and he was dead by then. It hurts to even write this. WOnderful, promising young man. Wonderful supportive family and the kids were also mostly probably of the same. Just living a norm that still is typical. He should have gone to the hospital after that fall.</p>
<p>Very upsetting for everyone involved. This is pretty typical… it is not in the college’s best interest to involve the local police department when incidents occur. This has been discussed on other threads out there.</p>
<p>Earlier, I feared that the police had decided to start investigating because it looked as if it might turn out to be a fatal accident, but didn’t want to say so.</p>
<p>Condolences to his family and friends. There are no words.</p>
<p>Oh, that hits me hard. I am so sorry. That is a reason that police have to become involved even if there is absolutely nothing to do in terms of illegal activity. In the situation I cited earlier, no charges were made, all primary people were of age to drink, as was the young man. No suspicions of the fall being caused by someone, but yes, the police were there investigating, because he died. Had he not, they would not have been.</p>
How horrible.</p>