A football fan has died after falling 35 feet from the first row of the upper deck Friday night at the Georgia Dome, landing on a patron and sending both to the hospital, the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office said early Saturday.
The 20-year-old man who fell later died at Grady Memorial Hospital, Medical Examiner’s office Investigator Leon Harrison told the AJC just before 1 a.m. Saturday.
The incident happened about 8:40 p.m. Friday during the Chick-fil-A kickoff game between Tennessee and North Carolina State.
The man who fell, who was wearing a Tennessee shirt, was taken to Grady, and the the person he landed on in the mezzanine area was transported to Atlanta Medical Center. There was no immediate word on the second person’s conditions.
Two fans in Section 311, behind the end zone, were sitting near the man who fell and described what happened.
“Tennessee had scored a touchdown — I believe it was the second,” said William Coates, a Tennessee fan from Arkansas. “There were three people who weren’t with [our group]. … It looked like [the man who fell] was doing a fist pump, and then he was gone over the top.”
William Fossett, a Tennessee fan from Paducah, Ky., said, “He was just laying there [in the section below] between rows. It took like 15 minutes for the medical workers to get there.”
Coates added, “He wasn’t moving. His chest was moving a little.”
The incident is being jointly investigated by Atlanta police and Georgia World Congress Center police.
Nationwide, it was the second fall at a sporting event this week. A 25-year-old Houston man died after fallingabout 60 feet from a fifth-floor escalator at Reliant Stadium during a Thursday night preseason Texans game, officials said Friday.
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