A 20-year-old male fell into an underground atrium in front of the east entrance of the Marriott Library late Wednesday afternoon.
U student Amanda Smith was studying in the library when she saw the young man fall. She said he was able to speak before police transported him to the U Hospital.
“It took a while for people to realize it was a person who fell,” said Smith, a senior in anthropology who rushed outside to help. “He landed on wood chips and could move around. We tried to keep him as still as possible.”
Sgt. Arb Nordgran, a spokesman for the U Police Department, said police have found students sitting and smoking on the wall in the past and warned them to get off for safety reasons.
In efforts to reach the scene, the Salt Lake City Fire Department attempted to use the westbound lane of South Campus Drive to travel east toward the library because of traffic. Fire trucks were stopped past Rice-Eccles Stadium when a woman driving westbound tried to back up and drove over the Utah Transit Authority TRAX line curb. Fire personnel left the truck and ran up to the library to attend to the fall victim. Police had to lift the woman’s Honda Civic off the TRAX line. Traffic remained backed up for about an hour near the library and University Campus Store.
No one else was injured.
Lana Groves
