<p>This is so sad. Apparently the kids hang out on the building roofs all the time. The fall from the 5th story roof happened Saturday morning at 10:30am and is NOT believed to be a suicide. There may have been some alcohol or drugs involved. The head injuries worsened early this morning and the young man died at 3am this morning.</p>
<p>So sad and senseless…:(</p>
<p>Didn’t the same thing happen at Purdue just recently?</p>
<p>My heart goes out to those who love him and to the students that were with him. It’s just so sad.</p>
<p>That is horrible, MOWC. Similar things have happened at severalschools-- inudign a student who was visityng Yale and attended a party, where he fell out a window, and a student who fell off a roof several yrs ago at Emory. Sympathies to the Penn community and the student’s family.</p>
<p>I really feel sad when I read these things. My prayers for the parents.</p>
<p>A Milli, why do you think this is funny?</p>
<p>My son has told me that being caught on the rooftops at the Unversity of Chicago is something you could theoretically be expelled for. Perhaps this is why.</p>
<p>gravity…</p>
<p>^^^Thats in really bad taste, TG. What if it was your kid? Sheesh.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to his friends and family - so sad. From what I’ve heard, the young man was an avid climber and had done this before. I read that nurses in the hospital could actually see him scaling the walls of the building from their window and tried to call for help.</p>
<p>So he was climbing up the building, Roshke? Thank you for providing some updated information. Such a tragic loss. Kids do the darndest things.</p>
<p>Tragic, or stupid?</p>
<p>^^ What’s the deal? It IS tragic when a young person dies. Perhaps he was being stupid. It doesn’t make it less tragic. He isn’t the first person to do something stupid.</p>
<p>It’s tragic when you are standing waiting for a bus and a car goes off the road and kills you. Climbing buildings as a stunt is stupid and criminal trespass.</p>
<p>Apaprently the kids go on the roofs fairly regularly at Penn. That doesn’t make it OK, but it also doesn’t mean that when an accident results it is not tragic.
This is someone’s SON and he’s dead. To me, that is tragic. I hope your kids never do stupid things, but maybe if they do and there are bad consequences, it won’t bother you if it is due to stupidity.</p>
<p>This happened at my freshman dorm as well (many moons ago) - I was home that weekend, but every so often I think of that young man and the chance at a full life that was taken away from him because he was fooling around hanging off a light that gave way…my sympathies to the young man’s family.</p>
<p>Actually it would bother me much more if it were stupidity. Tragedy is unavoidable–like a drunk driver crossing the road and hitting you head-on. I used to do a risky hobby–car racing–but there were many protections built into it and I went beyond the required ones to be extra safe. I did not run at tracks I felt were unsafe due to lack of runoff and trees near the fast corners where you could easily go off. I had a custom roll cage built that greatly exceeded the minimum requirements.<br>
That’s why I don’t even like the term “accident”. Accidents should be something that could not reasonably been prevented through normal care. Most accidents are really just stupid behavior with a bad result.</p>
<p>This boy was a friend of one of my best friends at college and I think his family and friends would really appreciate it if people would keep their unnecessary comments to themselves. These are real people, you know, not just characters in stories that you can criticize with impunity.</p>
<p>^^ Thank you. Barrons, give it a rest. A young person has died.</p>
<p>I hate to hear things like this. What a senseless death. </p>
<p>A grad student at the University of Chicago was found dead a week or so ago on the ground outside of our large chapel. He fell or jumped from the scaffolding of the building; it’s unknown whether it was suicide or accidental.</p>