Swinburne Hawthorn: Man found dead on Wakefield Street campus

The building where a man died after plummeting down stairs at the Swinburne Hawthorn campus has reopened, as students and staff are offered counselling.

The building where a man died at Swinburne Hawthorn has reopened, as shocked staff and students are offered counselling.

The exact circumstances that led to a man falling to his death down a busy flight of stairs at the uni remain unclear.

The man, who the university said was not a student or a member of staff, was found dead after it’s believed he fell through the glass side of a flight of stairs at the Advanced Technologies Centre (ATC) building at 1pm on Tuesday at the uni’s Hawthorn campus.

In a post online on Wednesday night, Swinburne said: “Yesterday was a sad day for our Swinburne community.

“We encourage our staff and students to refer to the emails received regarding the incident and to reach out for support if this has impacted them.

“Investigations have been completed and the ATC building will reopen from tomorrow, Thursday August 18.”

The post encouraged staff and students to reach out to counselling services.

People have honoured the man who died with flowers at the entrance of the building. Picture: Facebook.

The man is yet to be formally identified. Picture: Kim Seedy.

The normally busy building remained closed on Wednesday as students left flowers at the centre’s entrance.

Student Ariana S said she believed the man tripped down a flight of stairs, fell through the glass side of the stairs and landed in the basement.

“They had taped off the stairs a few floors up, which I think might be why people thought they fell from multiple floors,’’ she said.

“You could see the broken pane of glass missing from the stairs on the ground floor, and the glass was all on the floor in the basement.

“There’s lockers in the basement that the person must have landed on before making contact with the ground and they were all broken.”

Student Lily Materne said she was shocked to hear someone had died in the building.

“It was horrible to hear,” she said.

“I was really shaken.”

Fellow students Harrison and Wei said they did not know the person who died, but their hearts went out to their family and friends.

Wei said he saw emergency services rush to the scene from his apartment nearby and had been sent an email from Swinburne saying classes in the ATC building had been cancelled.

University student Connor said he saw the aftermath of the incident.

“It’s just a really horrible thing to happen here at Swinburne,” he said.

He said he didn’t know any details about what happened but walked past afterwards and saw a lot of people gathered outside the building.

Two female students said they weren’t on campus when the incident happened but were shocked to hear what had happened.

The death is not being treated as suspicious and the deceased is yet to be formally identified.

A university spokesperson said it was not appropriate to comment at this time as police were preparing a report for the coroner but confirmed counselling had been offered to all students and staff.