SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A Notre Dame investigation has found that football staff was using outdated weather reports the day a hydraulic lift blew over in high winds and killed a student filming practice.
The university released the details Monday. It has completed its own investigation into the Oct. 27 accident that killed 20-year-old Declan Sullivan of Long Grove, Ill.
The report says football staff likely would have grounded the lifts had they seen National Weather Service reports showing wind speeds of 29 mph with gusts of 38 mph. But the report says they used an earlier forecast and never saw the updated warning issued nearly an hour before practice.
Sullivan was killed when the lift he was on toppled in a 53 mph wind gust. Peter Likins, a former University of Arizona president who provided an independent review of Notre Dame’s investigation, says no one person was to blame.
