It wasn’t “burning down the house”—more like, “falling through the floor,” as a raucous off-campus frat party turned disastrous at Clemson University during homecoming weekend.
Partygoers at a rented South Carolina clubhouse were getting it in at an annual Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. party when video showed the floor giving out around 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
Thankfully, there were no life-threatening injuries.
“So everyone was jumping. The beat was about to drop, and literally, the whole floor collapsed,” said Clemson University sophomore Larissa Stone, according to the Greenville News. “People are under other people. People are hurt. People are bleeding. I had blood on my sneakers. It was really bad.”
“We started jumping, and we just—boom!—all you seen was black,” Franzie Pendergrass, told WYFF, the local NBC affiliate.
Clemson Police Chief Jimmy Dixon issued a statement saying 30 people were injured, none seriously, and taken to various hospitals in the area.
“We’re just thankful that it was not any worse than it was,” Dixon said to WYFF.
The Washington Post reports that the catastrophe happened at the Woodlands Apartments complex in Clemson, S.C., which was built in 2004, and that the collapse happened in a common area within the complex.
The space, about three miles off campus, was rented out by the Clemson chapter of Kappa. Reports say that a Clemson official is doubtful there were any laws the group violated.
Clemson University President Jim Clements said on Twitter that he is monitoring the situation, and the school tweeted that school representatives were sent to the hospitals where the injured were taken.