[PAmedic]

horrible tragedy- very sorry to hear this.

link to Fox Sports story

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP)
A Notre Dame student died Wednesday after the tower from which he was filming football practice fell over.

Declan Sullivan, a 20-year-old junior from Long Grove, Ill., was transported from the LaBar practice complex to a South Bend hospital, where he died.

The Huffington Post reported that Sullivan sent messages to Twitter less than an hour before he fell to his death.

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

The second message read, "Holy (expletive) holy (expletive) this is terrifying."

[Hold My Own]

Wow, this is unreal. This will be seeing a courtroom here soon.

[PAmedic]

Wow, this is unreal. This will be seeing a courtroom here soon.

no doubt.

if ND has any humanity they settle this quickly and name something substantial in the poor kid's memory

[olldflame]

I wonder if the guys who post here and are or have been involved with video for our football team have any thoughts about him being up there with winds gusting to 50mph. Would you have done it? Have you done it? Seems like that is really pushing it to me.

[Old School]

I, and a lot of my co-workers, have worked freelance games where we have to operate camera from a lift or scaffolding and I can tell you I am always nervous to do it, especially on very windy days. When you go up 30 or 40 feet in the air even with outriggers extended the lift will sway and feel like it is going over. You are required nowadays to wear a safety harness on most freelance sporting events to prevent this type of situation from happening.

[olldflame]

I can see justifying a certain amount of risk to broadcast a game. Making video of practice is IMHO a whole different matter. They had moved the previous days practice indoors because of high winds. I'm guessing the coaches didn't want to do it 2 days in a row and just decided to go outside anyway. That doesn't mean they had to send someone 50 feet up in a cherry-picker to get the high angle of .......................PRACTICE. (cue Allan Iverson video.)

[Old School]

You are probably right.....if he was that scared he should have come down.....I doubt if the coaches would have gotten mad at him over it. We are always told....safety first.....game second

[adam42381]

Terrible story. Makes me wonder if the kid thought his position would be in jeopardy if he came down. ND is going to receive some serious backlash for this one.

[Rooster Cogburn]

I (much like old school) have shot from lifts like this many times. I can only remember one time where I was scared for my life. It was a very windy day and raining right above freezing. There were 2 guys from the school sharing the lift with me and we were not happy with how the lift was tossing around in the wind. Most of the time I feel OK in the lifts. If I face a windy day in a lift again, I may think harder about insisting we come up with other options.

The Twitter quotes are haunting.

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

The second message read, "Holy (expletive) holy (expletive) this is terrifying."

[Rooster Cogburn]

You are probably right.....if he was that scared he should have come down.....I doubt if the coaches would have gotten mad at him over it. We are always told....safety first.....game second

Exactly.

[prototype]

Can you spell 7 figure settlement?

Parents will make a statement - this will not happen ever again. Not sure if a safety harness would have helped.

[Rooster Cogburn]

If the harness keeps him from getting thrown out of the basket on the way down, maybe

[prototype]

I'm guessing that I would want to jump as far away as i could and not have that thing pin me under it? Maybe he could have aimed for those bushes?

[olldflame]

In my totally unscientific opinion, a harness might have actually made things worse in this case, since the entire rig went over and being more confined by the harness would restrict your ability to try to land on your feet, which I believe would give you the best chance of surviving. I would think overall a harness is a good idea though. Not sending people up on lifts in high winds is a better idea.

I didn't like what their AD, who was present at the time had to say. He made it sound like it was one sudden gust of wind that came out of nowhere, which really seems to conflict with what the kid tweeted and all of the other reports. Notre Dame needs to keep their mouths shut, negotiate a VERY generous settlement with the family, set up a scholarship in the kid's name and initiate VERY STRICT safety policies to assure it never happens again.

[PAmedic]

...Notre Dame needs to keep their mouths shut, negotiate a VERY generous settlement with the family, set up a scholarship in the kid's name and initiate VERY STRICT safety policies to assure it never happens again.

exactly right

[TDDance234]

It's going to be awful hard for any court to see those tweets and side in anyway with Notre Dame. I agree that ND just needs to shutup, settle with the family and don't say another word. They are knee deep here.

[BJWilliams]

They may need 8 figures for this one...judging by the story the luck of the Irish wont get them out of this one

[Schfourteenteen]

With as much money as ND has, I'm surprised they haven't turned to something like dartfish software on a camera stand, and I'm more shocked that they used a scissor lift to video practice.

[From the class of 09]

Notre Dame's Kelly must go...says Jason Whitlock

There are some mistakes coaches can’t survive. Brian Kelly made one Wednesday.
Before Notre Dame reaches a financial settlement with the family of Declan Sullivan, the 20-year-old videographer who died in a tragic practice accident, the school must sever ties with its first-year head football coach...

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootbal ... ath-102910

[prototype]

Notre Dame's Kelly must go...says Jason Whitlock

There are some mistakes coaches can’t survive. Brian Kelly made one Wednesday.
Before Notre Dame reaches a financial settlement with the family of Declan Sullivan, the 20-year-old videographer who died in a tragic practice accident, the school must sever ties with its first-year head football coach...

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootbal ... ath-102910

Now that's just ridiculous!!!