A football fan fell 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 Georgia World Congress Center Authority said.
The incident happened around 8:40 p.m. during the Chick-fil-A kickoff game between Tennessee and North Carolina State.
The 20-year-old man, who was wearing a Tennessee shirt, and the the person he landed on in the mezzanine area were transported to Atlanta Medical Center. There was no immediate word on their 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 investigated by the Georgia World Congress Center Police Department.
Nationwide, it was the second fall at a sporting event this week. A 25-year-old Houston man died after falling about 60 feet from a fifth-floor escalator at Reliant Stadium during a Thursday night preseason Texans game, officials said Friday.
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