PULLMAN — A 19-year-old man is at least the fourth Washington State University student to fall out of a Pullman building this school year.
Police said alcohol likely played a role in three of the falls.
The latest accident occurred early Sunday morning when a student who had been drinking fell from a fraternity house balcony. The Moscow-Pullman Daily News reported that Griffin Healey was in a Spokane hospital with head injuries.
Pullman police were dispatched around 1 a.m. Sunday to the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and found Healey on the ground behind the house, Cmdr. Chris Tennant said.
Witnesses told officers that Healey had tried to sit on the waist-high railing of a balcony on the frat’s second story but toppled backward and fell.
“The ground there has a brick retaining wall and also a bunch of rocks, and it appears as if he received a head injury from hitting one of those, either the wall or the rocks,” Tennant said.
He said Healey was unconscious but breathing when officers arrived.
Witnesses said Healey had been drinking alcohol earlier in the evening. Tennant said the police department isn’t planning a criminal investigation.
Washington State University administrators have created an alcohol and drug task force in response to three other recent cases:
— Police found a 19-year-old man lying on his stomach in a basement window well outside the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity on Sept. 14. He reportedly fell from the third story of the house.
— On Sept. 28, a 22-year-old WSU student fell three stories off a balcony at the Boulder Creek Apartments in Pullman after reportedly telling a friend he could climb down to the complex’s second floor.
— On Oct. 10, a 22-year-old man fell 11 stories from his dorm room in WSU’s Orton Hall. He was conscious and semi-alert when police arrived. Foul play and alcohol were not involved, police and WSU officials have said.
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