With the two tragedies that occurred early last year at the War Memorial Stadium, University of Wyoming personnel have chosen to increase and change some of their security regulations.
The first of the cases happened in May of 2011 when UW student David Schmitt fell to his death after attempting to climb the upper deck of the stadium. Following Schmitt’s fatality, 43-year-old Erik Andrews had committed suicide by jumping off the southeast corner of the stadium two months later.
Although these were the only two incidents to have been reported happening at War Memorial, UW facility members want to take more preventive measures to ensure safety amongst individuals.
Officials have already indefinitely restricted access to the stadium after hours except to those members authorized in the athletics department. They have also increased security checks around the arena to prevent more misfortunes from occurring.
Michael Samp, chief of the UW Police Department, mentioned a few other adjustments that are being taken to improve safety in the stadium for the upcoming year. One of which is modifying the lighting which will improve visibility, especially at night, which has been the leading concern. There’s also been a great deal of modifications being done to the fencing around the area which will hopefully prevent people from successfully breaking in. On top of those two main changes, facility members have also revised occupancy hours and have made some alterations to them as well.
Officials are taking a variety of precautions for future years to prevent other misfortunes like the two in the past from ever happening again. It’s their hope that those two cases will be the only ones to have ever happened in the history of War Memorial.
“In the long-term, I certainly feel these adjustments are going to make a big difference,” Samp said. “I think to in order maintain safety we just need to concentrate more on the things we’ve overlooked in the past.”
