Sydney Monfries, a 22-year-old Fordham Student, died died trying to get a photograph for social media by falling to her death inside a clock tower.
The fall happened at the Bell Tower on the Fordham campus. She was with a group of friends in the early hours of the morning.
Monfries and her friends had just finished having dinner at a nearby barbecue restaurant and were climbing the tower as a "rite of passage" leading up to their graduation next month, according to staff on campus.
Sydney Monfries died after falling inside clock tower @FordhamNYC At 1 pt. 22 yr old lived in NJ. A childhood friend says she “was a genuinely beautiful person inside and out. She truly was a bright light in this world taken way too soon.” @ABC7NY pic.twitter.com/5Y3ttO5UCT
— Kemberly Richardson (@kemrichardson7) April 15, 2019
After she climbed the narrow staircase inside the tower, she uploaded a video to Snapchat and added the caption: "Bell Tower," according to a report from The New York Times.
Monfries was knocked unconscious by the fall. When paramedics arrived they had trouble getting her out of the tower because the staircase was too narrow for the stretcher to get through.
The paramedics were finally able to get through a window and to the ground. When they were finally able to get her to the hospital she was pronounced dead.
Details on the incident have yet to surface. It's unclear how many students were with Monfries when she fell. A waiter at the restaurant said they had the dinner beforehand, but they weren't sure whether or not they had been drinking alcohol.
More on the incident from Daily Mail:
The waiter said that after she fell, his roommate rushed to be by her side.
'She couldn’t breath. She hit her head,' he said.
Other students described climbing the bell tower as a dangerous rite of passage.
'It’s like a senior thing to go on the most popular building on campus.
'Recently people heard the door was open or found a passageway. They usually go late at night at around 1 or 2 a.m. to drink and see the view,' Priscilla Morales told The New York Times.
Monfries was an intern at InStyle magazine. Her family, who live in Portland, Oregon, have not yet commented on her death.
A very sad story, but a lesson to be learned for the younger generation.
