CARBONDALE — The morning of March 6 passed quietly at Faner Hall on the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus.
A Sunday during spring break, no professors were meandering toward their offices and the structure’s cold concrete walls echoed only silence in the absence of students making their way to class.
While the quiet and tranquility was unusual for one of the campus’ largest buildings, it might have been most appropriate.
That Sunday marked 50 years since one of the university’s most tragic and seemingly forgotten incidents – a construction accident that cost an 18-year-old freshman his life.
Monday, March 6, 1972 was a typical day late winter day in Carbondale. Mild temperatures with gusty winds greeted SIU students on their way to morning classes.
For many, their trek would include passage through one of the biggest building projects the campus had ever seen: Construction of a new humanities and social services building that would eventually be named Faner Hall.
Work on the planned 225,000 square-foot, $13 million building had been underway for about a year. With the 914-foot-long project stretching across many of the sidewalks connecting the eastern potions of campus with the buildings to the west, a pedestrian tunnel made from plywood allowed students and others to walk through the construction site as laborers toiled and cranes towered overhead. The environment made some, such as student Janet Burger Vaught, nervous.
Vaught was a 20-year-old sophomore who often walked through the tunnel to get to her student-work job in a building near Morris Library.
“It was the only way to get from Parkinson and the other buildings over there to the west side of campus without going way around, so it was a very heavily-traveled sidewalk,” she recalled. “I remember that tunnel. I’m not good with distances, but it was probably 30 or 40 feet and didn’t really cover the entire sidewalk where the construction was. I don’t remember that tunnel being very sturdy.”
She recalls being in awe of the 110-ton crane lifting loads of lumber and other supplies overhead with its huge boom.
“I had never seen major construction like that and when you are young and naïve, you can’t help but look up at it all. I was awestruck by how magnificent and huge it was and just like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” she said.
SIU’s Faner Hall myths and mystique
She also said she remembers being a little nervous every time she walked through the tunnel and under that crane.
It was a path she took about 9:15 or 9:30 a.m. on March 6, 1972, just like she did at least three days a week. Some students used the passageway daily; it was a popular path, especially in-between classes.
Just minutes after Vaught passed through, the same crane that gave her such awe and anxiety was being used to lift and swing 1,000 pounds of lumber to the upper levels of the construction site.
But something went wrong.
Published reports indicate that as the crane was lifting the load, the cab of the machine began to tilt forward. The crane operator, a 30-year veteran of construction, began pulling back on the boom to regain balance when the 250-foot boom buckled and collapsed.
“The massive high-intensity tubular-steel structure fell across a well-traveled walkway through the site, snapping power lines and finally crashing to the sidewalk into a crowd of students southeast of Morris Library,” according to The Daily Egyptian, SIU’s student newspaper that documented the incident.
The boom knocked wood from the wooden walkway, striking and injuring two female students. As the boom crashed to the sidewalk, it struck Michael G. Hayes, a freshman from Schaumburg, on the neck and shoulder before pinning him to the sidewalk as he was approaching the tunnel from the west. He was pronounced dead at a Carbondale hospital.
“I can’t remember if I heard the sirens first or if someone told us of the accident,” Vaught recalled of the moments after, “but I do remember thinking that it was probably the wind which caused something. We didn’t know how many were injured that early on. I just remember all of the sirens. We didn’t realize the magnitude of it until about an hour later when it hit me how it was a near-miss for me.”
Witnesses told the student newspaper that they believed the load was falling too fast. The Southern Illinoisan at the time reported weather observations from the morning showed wind gusts of up to 30 miles per hour at the Southern Illinois Airport about 10 a.m.
The newspaper also reported that the same crane was involved in an accident six years prior during construction of the Brush Towers residence halls.
SIU President David R. Derge, who was in Chicago for a Board of Higher Education Meeting, immediately expressed condolences to Hayes’ family and promised a full investigation into the incident. The walkway was closed and construction on the building was halted for about a week.
Hayes was remembered by classmates as a “really great guy.” His parents flew to Carbondale shortly after the accident. Hayes’ obituary said he was the son of Gregory and Joann Hayes. It listed no siblings.
An extensive search by The Southern could not locate family members or any of Hayes’ college roommates for comment.
Larry Richardson, a former SIU student, said he also remembers the day of the accident. Richardson was working at Carbondale’s WCIL when reports of the collapse came into the radio station.
“An otherwise quiet morning was shattered by the news,” Richardson said. “It took some time to get the doctors to confirm Michael’s death as they waited for SIU to contact his family.”
Recently, Richardson sent an email to Jennifer Jones-Hall, current dean of students, asking about a remembrance of Hayes’ death. He also sent a note to The Southern Illinoisan inquiring about the lack of a memorial.
He said he received a prompt reply from Jones-Hall that she didn’t know of the accident.
Current SIU Chancellor Austin A. Lane and College of Liberal Arts Dean Andrew Balkansky both told The Southern that they we unaware of the accident as well.
Richardson said he is surprised at the lack of a memorial. He suggested that the university name the plaza in front of Faner Hall in Hayes’ honor, place a plaque in the area or even establish a scholarship.
“I know that other faculty and students have died, but this tragedy was directly connected to the school; it’s almost that Michael died in the mission of the university. I don’t know that there is another incident in the history of SIU like that,” he said.
Longtime SIU faculty member John Jackson said he remembers the accident, too.
“That crane was a formidable thing, because it had to be more than three stories. There was the wooden tunnel and people thought it would have been a safe space. It’s one of those things I’ve never forgot because I walked through that very area so many times,” Jackson said.
A county coroner’s inquest found the incident to be an accident. Preliminary searches of newspaper coverage and available online resources do not turn up records of any insurance settlements or lawsuits related to Hayes’ death.
Finished … and then forgotten
Construction resumed about a week after the accident, this time with no pedestrian tunnel and a larger fenced-off area around the site. To the best of his memory, Richardson said there was not any sort of on-campus memorial for Hayes. He said he feels the campus just wanted to move on.
“I think there was a lot going on at that time, maybe,” he recalled. “This was after the riots and there had been so much turmoil for so long. Plus, Faner Hall was controversial.”
Vaught said the accident was “the talk of the town” for a while, but added if there was any sort of remembrance, she does not recall it.
“If there was, I know that I would not have gone. I don’t want to say I was traumatized, but it hit home and I don’t know if emotionally, I would have want to put myself through that,” she said, as she began to tear up during a recent interview.
When the building finally was officially dedicated on April 9, 1975, 300 dignitaries and guests heard SIU President Warren Brandt call the building “a statement to the importance of the liberal arts to the life of this university.”
Speakers recognized the building’s namesake for his contributions to the university. Newspaper coverage of the dedication makes no mention of Hayes’ death — although The Southern reported in one report that the accident was included in a time capsule placed behind the building’s commemorative plaque which simply reads “Faner Hall – 1971.”
That plaque is still present. What is missing, Richardson believes, is some sort of tribute to Hayes.
“I was back on campus several years ago and had a wonderful time in a flood of memories,” Richardson, who now lives in Rochester, New York, said. “I looked for some plaque or something in his memory and I couldn’t find one. I made it a point to raise the profile of the incident when it had been 50 years,” he said.
Richardson also urged that something be done in Hayes’ memory at Faner Hall.
“It’s not too late to acknowledge that this is sacred ground,” he said.
Photos: Faner Hall construction accident, March 6, 1972
A newly installed security fence blocks access to a wooden tunnel previously used by students and faculty to cross through construction of the new Humanities Building, later deemed Faner Hall, on the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus. The fence was installed as a result of the collapse of a crane’s boom, seen resting on the building project, about 10 a.m., Monday, March 6, 1972.
This photo from March 1972 shows the crumbled crane boom which collapsed on the Faner Hall construction site and a wooden pedestrian tunnel through the project. The collapse killed a freshman from Schaumburg and injured to female students.
Clean-up begins at the Faner Hall construction site following the collapse of a 250-foot crane boom, March 6, 1972. The boom struck and killed a Southern Illinois University Carbondale student.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale police and onlookers view the crumbled remains of a 110-ton crane involved in an accident on the site of what would become Faner Hall in March 1972. The incident, which was determined to be an accident due to high winds, killed one student and injured two others.
he mangled remains of a crane boom rests on what would become the first floor of Faner Hall after it collapsed on March 6, 1972. The accident killed 18-year-old Michael G. Hayes, a freshman from Schaumburg, who was walking to class when the boom failed.