Can falls, injures student at 162 North State

by Max Lamberg with additional reporting
by Russell Gottwaldt

In the early morning of October 12, SAIC ungergrad Kabel Kruithoff was with her friend Cassandra Brooke Magiera outside of the school’s 162 State Street dorms when a full 32-ounce beer can fell from a 13th floor window and struck Kruithoff’s head. After she was knocked down, a beer bottle followed and smashed near the students on the sidewalk.

Magiera ran back to the doors outside the 162 building, tried to get back in through the locked main entrance, and had to call for security, who then called for an ambulance to take Kruithoff to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Associate Dean of Student Affairs, Debbie Martin, said that a security supervisor was close by the building and fortunately, Chicago Police officers who were on patrol on State Street happened to be just across Randolph Street, who quickly called for medical assistance when they noticed the accident.

The following day all the windows facing State Street were drilled and screwed shut in the 162 building. Many Art Institute students who lived in the 162 North State Street dorms regularly removed the saftey brackets on their dorm windows, which could be done with screwdrivers, so that the window could slide open well past the fixed height, which were designed not to lift high enough to push cans or bottles through.

It was not uncommon for SAIC students on all floors to do this either to smoke without getting caught or simply to let more air in. In addition, in order for a can or bottle to be pushed out of any window on the east side in the building, the fixed screen also would have to have been removed.
The police department has filed the incident as an acident and there will be no criminal charges.

The school has identified the room from which the can and bottle fell, but is still investigating for further details. Kruithoff was in fair condition following her immediate surgery, but has since been feeling much better “I’m getting sensations back in my right hand now,” Kruithoff said, “I’m recovering really well.”

NOVEMBER 2005