Student falls through grate
By Rachael Conley
Assistant
Campus Editor
A student fell down a ventilation grate at 3 p.m.
on Monday near the Horticulture Building.
As Brian Bornino, a sophomore in the School of
Agriculture, was walking to the Horticulture building to use a computer
lab, he was surprised to have a ventilation grate give way beneath him.
As he stepped onto the grate, it fell and then he fell into the hole
below.
"I just stepped over the thing and it went down
with me," said Bornino.
Russ Albert, a sophomore in the School of Agriculture,
was walking with Bornino at the time. Albert said the fall was probably
between 15 to 20 feet.
"We were just walking along and I heard this noise
and then I saw him fall through," Albert said. "It was like one minute
you see him and the next you don't."
Bornino said he was not hurt by the fall. He landed
on his feet in the hole and escaped with only minor scrapes and scratches.
Once he had fallen, Bornino said his primary thought
was how to get out.
"I just looked up and I was like well, how am I
gonna get out of this now?" he said.
Bornino said the space was small, but he thought
there may be a way out other than the entrance he had first used.
"There was like a boiler room thing down there
and I thought there might be a way to get out through that," he said.
Instead, Albert and a few other members of the
crowd that had formed decided to try and pull him out.
"I just jumped and they grabbed my hands and pulled
me out," Bornino said.
Once out of the hole, Bornino and Albert continued
on to the computer lab and when they returned outside, they saw maintenance
people checking the vent.
Albert said the entire event was entertaining.
"It was one of the funniest things I have ever
seen," he said.
Howard Byers, evening general supervisor of building
services, thinks this is the first time this has ever happened.
"I don't know that that's ever happened to anybody,"
he said.
Bornino said this experience didn't phase him too
much and he will probably still go over the vents.
"I'll probably still walk over them, it's just
the way I am," he said.
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