Two students “horsing around” in a college dormitory crashed through a third-floor window early Friday and fell to the concrete below in an apparent accident that killed one and critically injured the other, school officials said.
Investigators don’t believe drugs or alcohol were involved but were still trying to determine exactly what happened, said University of North Carolina spokeswoman Lisa Katz.
The two student were “just running, horsing around, playing,” Katz said. They went through a window at the end of a hallway in Stacy Residence Hall shortly after midnight, and both landed on a concrete ramp leading to the dorm’s basement, she said.
Other students from the hall were awake at the time, but it wasn’t immediately clear how many were present, Katz said.
School officials said the window had double-paned security glass with wire mesh.
Keith Shawn Smith, a 20-year-old sophomore from Greensboro and a resident assistant at the dorm, died at UNC Hospitals, hospital spokeswoman Stephanie Crayton said.
Tyler Joseph Ely Downey, a 19-year-old freshman from Asheville, was in critical condition Friday morning. Crayton declined to release details of his injuries.
Counselors were at the brick, Colonial-style dormitory on Friday, and the families of both students had arrived at the 27,000-student campus.
