Virginia Man Dies After Plummeting 10 Stories Down D.C. Hotel’s Boiler Shaft on New Year’s

A Virginia man died after he fell 10 stories down the boiler shaft of a Washington, D.C. hotel shortly after New Year’s, according to D.C. police and fire departments.

Police say John Leonard, 23, of Herndon, climbed onto the roof of the Dupont Circle Hotel along with another person to get some good views of the city just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday when he fell down the shaft to the basement, the Washington Post reported.

“It looks like a fall,” said Rachel Schaerr, a spokeswoman for the D.C. police. “He went up to the roof to catch a really good view.”

D.C. Fire and Metropolitan Police Department said in a tweet that officers responded to 72 emergency calls in the first hour of 2017, more than one emergency per minute.

Mark Caldwell, the manager of the hotel, called the incident “a tragic accident.”

D.C. police are still investigating the accident to determine how the fall occurred, NBC Washington reports.