UC San Diego student falls to death from dormitory window

Aaron Fan died in a fall from Tioga Hall at UC San Diego's Muir College.

San Diego Union-Tribune

Oct. 25, 2021 12:27 PM PT

SAN DIEGO — An 18-year-old student at UC San Diego died early Saturday morning after he fell out of a bathroom window of a campus dormitory, county officials said Sunday.

The San Diego County medical examiner’s office reported that Aaron Fan was at a party on the eighth floor of a campus dorm.

For the record:

5:27 p.m. Oct. 25, 2021An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the last name of Provost Provost K. Wayne Yang,

Responding to a noise complaint, a campus officer entered the room and saw Fan go into the bathroom, the report said. A short while later, about 11:44 p.m. Friday, witnesses saw Fan fall out of the bathroom window to the ground below.

Fan was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, where he was diagnosed with multiple injuries and was pronounced dead early Saturday morning.

UC San Diego announced Saturday that one of its students had died overnight. The university was in the midst of its annual homecoming celebration.

At the time, campus officials did not provide details of the incident.

“I write with a heavy heart this morning to share that we lost a member of the Muir College community overnight,” Muir Provost K. Wayne Yang said in an email to students.

“As we work to better understand the circumstances and respect the privacy of our student’s family, I want to assure you that we are here to support one another,” Yang said. “In this time of tragedy, let us speak respectfully of the dead. Let us treat each other with kindness. Let us be patient with each other’s emotions.”

Some students said Sunday that they had questions about the incident.

“This is an incredible tragedy,’ said Manu Agni, president of Associated Students at UCSD. “Everyone needs to respect the privacy of the victim and his family. But the university needs to be transparent about what happened and how it happened to make sure it never happens again.”

Muir is one of seven undergraduate residential campuses at UCSD, which has been straining under the pressure of record enrollment that hit nearly 43,000 this fall.

UC San Diego campus police are investigating the incident.

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Gary Robbins

Gary Robbins has been a journalist for nearly 50 years and currently covers science and higher education for The San Diego Union-Tribune. He joined the paper in April 2010 after working for 25 years at the Orange County Register, where he was science editor. Robbins was born and raised in Maine and attended Northeastern University in Boston, graduating in 1978. He served as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT during the 2000-01 academic year and a science writer fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts in June 2001. He can be reached at 714-642-5218.

Lori Weisberg

Lori Weisberg covers the tourism and hospitality industry, writing extensively about San Diego County hotels; restaurants; cruise ships; visitor attractions; air travel; and the convention center. A Southern California native and graduate of UCLA, she joined The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1980 and over the years has been awarded a number of fellowships in specialty reporting, multimedia and social media. She has regularly produced multimedia packages for the paper’s website and is able to shoot and edit video. Before joining the newspaper, she worked at the Vista Press and the Orange County Register.

Lauryn Schroeder

Lauryn Schroeder is a data specialist for the watchdog team at The San Diego Union-Tribune. She came to the U-T from The Associated Press in Indiana. Lauryn has experience at several small papers in Michigan, and took part in major data projects with the Medill Justice Project and The Washington Post.

UC San Diego student falls to death from dormitory window

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