Notre Dame Student's Death Raising Questions

Hundreds of people packed a memorial service at Notre Dame Thursday night for the student who was killed this week when a platform he was standing on fell during a powerful windstorm.

Declan Sullivan, 20, a junior from Long Grove, Ill., was a marketing and film double major and was said to love his work as a videographer for the football team and as a writer for the school paper, reports CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

His sudden death has cast a pall across the campus and left people asking about what led up to it.

Sullivan was taping a football practice from high above the field while on what's called a scissor lift when the tower toppled.

On Wednesday, a message on his Twitter account just as practice began shows he sensed trouble. "Gusts of wind up to 60 miles an hour," it said. "Well today will be fun at work. I guess I've lived long enough."

And then, just before the lift tipped over, "Holy blank. Holy blank, This is terrifying."

Sullivan fell some 50 feet to his death.

"It's just a feeling of shock and sadness that I think is really shared by everyone across campus and the entire university community," said Matt Gamber, editor in chief of the school newspaper, The Observer.

Among the questions being bandied about: Why was practice held outside in the wind when it had been indoors the day before?

Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrik called it "an unremarkable journey in the sense that practice was normal."

Swarbrick says it was a *sudden* gust of wind that knocked down Sullivan's lift. "I turned to face north and experienced a pretty extraordinary burst of wind, and I heard a crash," he says.

This, even though Sullivan's tweet about strong winds came hours earlier.

The football team plans to remember Sullivan this weekend during its game against Tulsa with a moment of silence, and by having its members wear a special decal on their helmets in his honor.