A Grantsville teen may never take the saying “gravity never sleeps” lightly again.
Sgt. Tanya Kalma with the Tooele City Police Department, said the 16-year-old male fell through a gymnasium roof skylight at Tooele Junior High School around 11 p.m. on July 17.
Kalma said he fell 29 feet to the gymnasium floor and suffered serious injuries. Unable to walk, he crawled across the gymnasium floor to the school’s foyer and front doors where two of his friends, also from Grantsville, were waiting.
The friends took him to a local hospital for treatment. Kalma said the police department was contacted the next morning by the Tooele County School District about the incident. Surveillance camera footage from the school helped to identify the teens involved.
Kalma said all three now face juvenile criminal trespassing charges. But another concern is that the teens didn’t call 911 for police or help, although one of them was seriously injured.
“Even if you’re doing something wrong, regardless of age, it is our job to make sure you’re safe and get the medical attention you need,” said Kalma. “That is always addressed first.”
Kalma also said Tooele Police are often called about graffiti and other acts of vandalism done to local schools during summer.
According to Marie Denson, communications director for the Tooele County School District, it has become popular among Tooele County youth to try and climb on top of the roofs or break into school buildings during non-school hours.
But the most common crimes reported to law-enforcement for being on school property without permission include vandalism, criminal mischief and trespassing, she said.
Denson said Tooele Junior High’s surveillance cameras caught the three teens trying to get into the school before the one fell through the skylight.
Steve West, the school district’s director of operations, said measures were implemented at the school in the past to try to prevent access points to the roof. Signage to deter individuals from climbing onto the roof were also installed, along with additional security cameras with motion alert capability.
“After the most recent incident, the district will be spending well over $100,000 of Capital Improvement funds at Tooele Junior High School just in adding metal window coverings and replacing all the skylights with non-breakable skylights,” West said. “In addition, we are continuing to look for ways to help prevent people from climbing on the roofs of all our school buildings in the county.”
This is not the first time someone has fallen through a skylight at the school. A year ago, a juvenile girl was lifeflighted to a Salt Lake-area hospital after she fell through a skylight, reportedly while trying to retrieve a ball from the roof. The girl fell approximately 15 feet into the school.
“The money spent on prevention measures or cleaning up vandalism takes away from students,” Denson said. “For example, the school district had to purchase all new playground equipment for Overlake Elementary School due to a fire that was purposefully set, making it unusable. Those funds could have been used elsewhere.”
Denson added the school district is grateful the teen who fell last week has improved from his injuries.
“Our first concern is the safety of our students and we want to encourage parents to speak to their children about the real dangers and criminal charges involved in trespassing on school grounds,” said Denson.