An electrocuted body discovered Monday in a high-voltage maintenance room at Purdue University was identified Tuesday by local coroners as Purdue freshman Wade Steffey. Steffey had been missing for more than two months when he disappeared after a Jan. 13 fraternity party at the West Lafayette, Ind., university.
It appeared Steffey tripped and fell onto a high-voltage transformer in one of the university's dorms, Purdue spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said at a press conference Tuesday.
"He is believed to have died instantly," she said.
A maintenance worker discovered the body Monday after investigating a "pinging sound" and an odd smell in the utility room.
In response to the accident, Purdue officials are scrambling to determine how Steffey gained access to the facility. Maintenance workers disassembled the room's lock Tuesday to see if it was properly working, according to the Associated Press.
Purdue Police and administrators are also investigating whether the university complied with federal regulations regarding signage in hazardous areas, Joe Mikesell, Purdue senior director of engineering, construction and utilities, told the Purdue Exponent, the school's newspaper. There were no warning signs posted on the door to the room - though depending on the date of the building's construction, none may be required.
"We do implement signage requirement. I don't know if we were in compliance or not. I hope we were, but I don't know for a fact," Mikesell said.
Norberg said during the press conference that Purdue will conduct an independent investigation into Steffey's death. "We're going to find out. The search for Wade Steffey is over, but the search for answers continues," she said at the press conference.
Since Steffey went missing in January, students and campus officials had organized repeated searches for him - the most recent of those on Sunday. The dorm where he was eventually found was searched by both people and canines, but maintenance staff did not fully inspect the facility because of the danger from the high-voltage equipment.
