Readers react to an article about community members signing an online petition for increased window safety in WSU residence halls. The petition, which came as a result of a freshman falling from his Community-Duncan Dunn room window Thursday, has already garnered 5,800 signatures since it opened Sunday. A GoFundMe to support medical costs reached over $36,000.

Read the full article here.

Jean-Paul Strozewski: “This issue is literally a non-issue. Less than 1 percent of students fall out windows. And out of that one percent, the majority of those falls are alcohol-related. Teach your kids to be responsible for their actions and make responsible choices.”

Emma Kurtenbach: “I understand the effort, but all residence hall windows are up to fire code. ‘Increasing window safety’ with no comprehensive plan on how this will not violate fire code simply doesn’t make sense. If we bar the windows or make them more difficult to open, it will defeat the entire purpose of having a window to escape your room in the event of a fire.”

Joe Lloyd: “There are plenty of window safety features in the residence halls. This shouldn’t fall into the lap of WSU leadership. It falls into personal accountability. What happened is extremely unfortunate, but students will drink and make poor choices with or without these ‘suggestions.’ ”

Laurence Lance: “This isn’t the first accident of this type. This is a hazard that should have never been engineered. There is a seating platform next to an open window. How dumb does an architect have to be to put this in place? How blind must an inspector be to not understand the risk? Yes, this student was drinking. Is that the college’s defense for the fall?”