WORLD : Man’s Fatal Leap From Notre Dame Cathedral Also Kills Schoolgirl, 14
A man jumped more than 250 feet to his death from the top of Notre Dame Cathedral today, killing a teen-age schoolgirl when he fell to the ground.
Police said the unidentified man, who was about 30 years old, jumped from the southern tower of Notre Dame about 11 a.m. and fell on Martine Blot, 14, of Paris, who was visiting the tourist site with a school group.
The girl, who died instantly, was standing a short distance from her classmates outside the cathedral admiring its facade when the body crushed her, witnesses told police.
“It is horrible,” said one witness, a British tourist. “How could someone do something like that?”
Visitors are allowed to climb the steep stairway to the 266-foot-high platform of the south tower--one of the cathedral’s graceful twin towers--for a view of the spire and flying buttresses.
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