SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — As the Notre Dame football team drilled on its practice field, Declan Sullivan stood high above the turf in a hydraulic lift, videotaping the session so players could get an aerial view of their performance.
Suddenly, the wind, already whipping so much that Sullivan reportedly tweeted that it was "terrifying," surged to 51 mph.
The lift toppled over.
"Things started flying by me that had been stationary for all of practice — Gatorade containers, towels," athletic director Jack Swarbrick recalled Thursday. "I noticed the netting by the goal post start to bend dramatically, and I heard a crash."
Sullivan, a junior film student from the Chicago suburb of Long Grove, Ill., was taken to a hospital, but Swarbrick said he received a call from the ambulance before it arrived saying the 20-year-old was not breathing. The young man was soon pronounced dead.
Swarbrick said he did not know how high the lift was when it fell over, and it was unclear who authorized Sullivan to go up in it. As a student worker, Sullivan reported to a video coordinator associated with the football team.
Swarbrick said the decision to practice outdoors is left up to individual athletic programs.
A workplace safety expert said the lift should never have been used in such blustery conditions. The university has pledged to review its policy for using the lifts.
"We're going to look at how it was done this day," Swarbrick said, adding that at least one other student was in a lift at the same time as Sullivan.
Media reports indicated Sullivan had tweeted just before the accident, including one that said it was "terrifying" to be on the tower in the high winds.
Swarbrick said he was aware of the tweets and promised to look into "all the dynamics" that preceded Sullivan's death.
A safety consultant with Workplace Group LLC, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based consortium with expertise in occupational safety, said wind gusts of 50 mph are much too high for safe outdoor use of any scissor lift.
Some manufacturers make lifts that can be used in winds up to 25 mph, but W. Jon Wallace said he would recommend against using a lift in winds above 10 mph because the higher the winds, the more unstable the equipment becomes.
"Having 50 mph winds with someone inside the scissor lift, it's just an accident waiting to happen in my professional opinion," he said.
Other schools said they are careful to follow safety instructions from the manufacturers of the hydraulic lifts, some of which can extend to 40 feet high.
Penn State and the University of Michigan said their lifts are grounded if wind gusts reach 28 mph. On Tuesday and Wednesday, when much of the Midwest was being swept by winds much higher than that, the Wolverines football team practiced with lifts at 15 to 20 feet.
Athletic officials at the University of Wyoming and the University of North Carolina said they would look at adopting specific policies for video lifts. Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said he checks wind conditions when preparing for practice, even though the school installed permanent video towers last year.
"You try to get as safe as you can," he said. "The wind is a scary thing when you're up there."
Texas Tech football spokesman Blayne Beal said students on the Lubbock campus do not use scissor lifts at all when winds reach 40 mph, and they are allowed to go up only 20 feet when wind speeds reach 20 mph. Each person on the lift has a hand-held wind monitor.
"That gives us real-time data and they can make the instant decision to come down," Beal said.
At the University of Arizona, director of football operations Erick Harper said video staff must be certified to run and inspect the scissor lifts they rent. He said the certifications are done by the rental company.
"They have the authority to lower [the] lift as needed if they feel uncomfortable because many times the degree of wind 30 to 40 feet high can be different from on the ground," he wrote in an e-mail. "Our guys are harnessed in and ... if for some reason the camera stand lock breaks, just let the camera fall."
Ole Miss has permanent towers, but video coordinator Andy Commer said he watches the weather just the same.
"There isn't a football drill or practice in the world that's important enough to get somebody hurt or, God forbid, killed," Commer said. "We agreed that we're never going to make that call to a parent. The question I always ask myself is ‘Would I put my kid up there?'"
The Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration sent an investigator to South Bend. Spokesman Marc Lotter said it was too early to say when the agency, which has the authority to levy fines, might release its findings.
The team planned to host Tulsa on Saturday as scheduled, Swarbrick said, and players planned to wear decals on their helmets to honor Sullivan.
Notre Dame was making grief counselors available for students and planned a special Mass in Sullivan's memory Thursday night.
Sullivan's parents met with school officials Thursday, and the family had many questions about his death, his uncle Mike Miley told The Associated Press.
For now, the family wants to remember and celebrate the life of the 20-year-old Sullivan.
"He always brought joy to people, and that's how we're remembering him," Miley said.
Matt Gamber, editor-in-chief of The Observer, the independent student newspaper for Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College, said Sullivan was majoring in marketing and film and had written about arts and entertainment events for the newspaper over two years.
"He was an extremely enthusiastic and a really driven kid, and that really showed through for us in his writing," Gamber said.
The university president, the Rev. John Jenkins, said Sullivan "was a bright, energetic, dedicated young man, and we will miss him greatly."
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