What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Notre Dame student dies off a collapsing tower that was used to film fb practice

JimmyBuff

Well-Known Member
Supposedly after the tower fell, the team continued practicing for 30 minutes afterward. The kid had some chilling tweets before and during filming practice

Notre Dame junior Declan Sullivan, 20, sent messages to Twitter from the top of the camera tower where he was recording a football practice less than an hour before he fell to his death Wednesday.



In the first message, timestamped 3:22 p.m., Sullivan wrote, "Gust of wind up to 60mph well today will be fun at work... I guess I've lived long enough :-/."



The second message, which was sent at 4:06 p.m., less than an hour before his tragic fall at 4:50 p.m., reads, "Holy **** holy **** this is terrifying."
The campus is reeling from the tragedy. Students and faculty members alike are taking to Facebook and Twitter to express disbelief that anyone -- let alone a 20 year-old student -- would have been in a camera tower under such harsh conditions

Supposedly the towers are only supposed to hold up to 25 mph wind, not 50 or 60 mph.


Awful tragedy. Not sure what the answer is here. Seems pretty reckless by the ND coaching staff to put this kid in that position. Of course I guess you could say the kid could have came down. Thoughts and prayers to the family.

more from the tribune.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...e-fatal-accident-102820101027,0,1166825.story
 
Can you say lawsuit ?

I knew you could.

That will come... but nothing brings this kid back... anyone responsible for this should be fired. This is a tragedy that with common sense could have been avoided.
 
Wow. I had heard about the incident, but didn't know much of the details. This is the kind of thing that would get a whole slew of people fired at a public university. Being at ND, they may be able to sweep it under the rug with a huge cash settlement. It's going to have to be huge, though. There's some definite culpability here. Plus, where does the settlement come from? The athletic department budget? The general operating budget for the school? Some kind of insurance policy?

Bad, bad stuff.
 
At least they are showing some commitment to football.
I truly hope that you were trying to be "clever" with this comment. Because, if this is the type of "commitment" that you are looking for, you should be ashamed.
 
Went to Notre Dame...stood on top of high towers...seems he was trying to get as close to Heaven as he could. God decided to do him one better.
 
This is on HC Brian Kelly and AD Jack Swarbrick.

Wouldn't be at all surprised if the NCAA doesn't jump in, too.

Thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of Declan Sullivan.
 
The kid clearly didn't want to be up there. Makes me think there had to be somebody supervising him who made him think he didn't have the choice to come down. Presumably that person is a ND employee, which is a very bad thing for the school. It's going to be interesting to see just how close that person is to HCBK and ADJS. And just how far and how fast they can move away from him....
 
My youngest is 20. I just can't imagine what the youn man's parents are going through. I will tell you this, if it were me, I'd want to freaking kill someone.
 
If ND has so much money, why not have an automated camera up there? Why send a student?
 
I worked the same job as this kid when I was at CU. It is not a bad job by the way. We had to work on one lift like this one and one fixed tower (a lightning rod). I was not fun in moderate winds let alone these types of winds. Anyway I feel sorry for this kid and his family.
 
Finally. A Catholic scandal that doesn't involve clergy.

Just hope ND learned some lessons about transparency over the last decade and deals with this head-on.
 
what i don't understand is why the kid didn't just climb down. if i was in that situation and somebody tried to make me stay up there, i'd tell them to **** off and leave.
 
what i don't understand is why the kid didn't just climb down. if i was in that situation and somebody tried to make me stay up there, i'd tell them to **** off and leave.

Exactly...he supposedly tweeted..."holy ****, hold ****, this is terrifying!" Then GET DOWN! Both the school and the kid were at fault.

Dumb. Shouldn't have happened.
 
what i don't understand is why the kid didn't just climb down. if i was in that situation and somebody tried to make me stay up there, i'd tell them to **** off and leave.

My guess is the kid didn't want to look like a complainer or a quitter and just figured he'd be okay. And maybe he put a little faith in the decision making ability of the adults that sent him up there.
 
My guess is the kid didn't want to look like a complainer or a quitter and just figured he'd be okay. And maybe he put a little faith in the decision making ability of the adults that sent him up there.

This.

At that age, you pretty much do what you're told to do. If he had climbed down, he would have been fired from whatever job he was doing. He had to weigh the certainty of getting fired against the possibility of being blown over by a big gust of wind. He probably had aspirations of getting a job after school for an athletic department somewhere. Hard to say I would have done anything differently, unfortunately.
 
I'll be shocked to find out he was actually getting paid to do this. This sounds like a intern/volunteer deal.
 
I'll be shocked to find out he was actually getting paid to do this. This sounds like a intern/volunteer deal.

Could be a minimum wage work study type job, too. I worked for the volleyball coach in college for my work study.
 
what i don't understand is why the kid didn't just climb down. if i was in that situation and somebody tried to make me stay up there, i'd tell them to **** off and leave.

On some of these lifts, you get on them at ground level and they scissor up to their height. Like a cherry picker, there is no ladder down.
Like this one (similar to what CU uses):
scissorplatform-05.jpg

If that's the case, he could not have climbed down, he would have to be dependent on somebody lowering him. I don't know that is what happened, but it is true for some camera platforms. We don't know whether or not he was calling or texting or asking anyone to LOWER him, either.

Somebody on the ground should have been aware of the danger. There should be a maximum wind allowed.

Very very sad news.
 
Tragic, tragic, tragic.

But I don't like the idea of always looking for a villain in these situations, the blame game. It's a tradegy and this happens. He's 20 years old, a man, not a kid. Why did he not come down? You have to use common sense and not just assume someone else is always looking out for you...or has planned for every contingency in life with you in mind. There is probably blame enough to be spread around, but ultimately life is crazy and uncontrollable to a larger degree then we would like to admit. Bad stuff happens. I can't imagin being his parents.
 
Absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking. God speed to that family and prayers as well.

This image puts the fear into the situation. This was literally his last comment to his family and friends. :(

sullivans.png


And yes, he was on a scissor lift.
 
Back
Top