I haven’t felt completely right since learning about the death of Declan Sullivan, the 20-year-old Notre Dame student who died Wednesday when the tower from which he was filming football practice collapsed in 50-mile-per-hour winds.
Maybe it’s because of the Twitter messages describing his situation. Maybe it’s because my son is only six years younger than Sullivan. Or maybe it’s just because a family will be forever changed because of the likelihood that at least one adult in a position to realize the risks didn’t intervene.
The guys at CFT have been following the story closely, including the news that OSHA is investigating the situation.
And that’s good. Sullivan’s passing was entirely preventable, and someone needs to be held accountable for not having the sense to keep him from assuming that perilous post on Wednesday.
It’s definitely not Sullivan’s fault. He was 20. Kids that age aren’t thinking about life and death. They’re thinking about doing cool things, like filming football practice at Notre Dame.
We suspect there’s much more to this story, and we hope that OSHA or whoever gets to the bottom of it. This needs to be a big story, if for no reason other than it could ensure the grown-ups on college campuses always remember that, even though most of the students look like grown-ups too, they still need to be protected at times.