ND study blames no one for accident

Associated Press

SOUTH BEND, Ind.

The final investigation into the death of a student videographer who died after a 40-foot-high hydraulic lift he was atop blew over in a 53 mph gust during a University of Notre Dame football practice ended Monday without anyone involved being faulted or punished.

University officials acknowledged that their procedures and safeguards weren’t adequate but said they couldn’t find anyone to blame for 20-year-old Declan Sullivan’s death. No one was monitoring wind speeds when the lift blew over, but it wasn’t anyone’s job to do that, executive vice president John Affleck-Graves said.

The Rev. John Jenkins, the university president, said he ultimately was responsible, but he doesn’t expect any action to be taken against him.

“We did not find any individual who disregarded safety or was indifferent to safety. Consequently, there was not any individual discipline,” Jenkins said. “Our conclusion is that it’s a collective responsibility that must be deal with collectively as we move forward.”

The university’s 130-plus page report found that while several members of the football staff were monitoring wind speeds before practice, they stopped checking after they went out for practice about 2:45 p.m. But Sullivan, a junior film student, checked later and saw a warning indicating the possibility of gusts up to 60 mph. He tweeted that the weather was “terrifying” and wrote: “Gusts of wind up to 60 mph today will be fun at work . . . I guess I’ve lived long enough.”

University investigators, however, couldn’t determine whether Sullivan felt pressured to go up in the lift because other videographers said the tweets likely reflected his joking nature and he often used the word “terrifying.”