An early-morning smoking break apparently led to the death of a Kansas University freshman Friday, KU officials said.

Eric J. Wellhausen, of Mount Prospect, Ill., fell from his seventh-floor room at Oliver Hall after either leaning out of his window or being on a ledge outside the room, said Lt. Schuyler Bailey of the KU Public Safety Office.

Smoking is banned in KU residence halls.

“It’s something people told us he had done before,” Bailey said of the smoking breaks. “It’s appearing he just slipped and fell.”

Authorities were called to the west side of Oliver Hall at 2:06 a.m. Friday. Bailey said Wellhausen, 18, had been lying on the ground 30 to 40 minutes before the incident was reported.

“It was 2 in the morning. I don’t know how much foot traffic was in that area,” Bailey said. “If somebody did see him, they probably thought, ‘There’s one of our residents drunk and passed out.'”

Bailey said he didn’t know if the delay affected Wellhausen’s chances of survival. The Douglas County coroner is expected to conduct an autopsy next week. Bailey said the autopsy could determine whether alcohol was involved.

No foul play is suspected, and the death is not believed to be a suicide, Bailey said.

Wellhausen’s family was notified early Friday and traveled to Lawrence to meet with KU officials.

¢ 6News video: KU student falls to his death

“I am deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of Eric Wellhausen,” Chancellor Robert Hemenway said in a prepared statement. “Our hearts go out to his parents, family and friends. On behalf of the entire University of Kansas community, I offer our deepest condolences.”

Wellhausen’s death was not the first of a KU student falling from a residence hall window.

In 2001, two 19-year-old students fell while taking smoking breaks outside their rooms. In May of that year, Matthew Ward, a freshman from Kingman, fell from the eighth floor of Hashinger Hall, shattering both ankles. In October, Saad Saifeddine, a freshman from Morocco, fell from the fourth floor of McCollum Hall but suffered only minor injuries.

The last death resulting from a fall was in 1994, when Scott McWhorter, a freshman from Dallas, fell from the fourth floor of Corbin Hall. Authorities suspected he had been sleepwalking when he kicked out the room window’s screen. He also had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.

Windows in KU residence halls open from the inside, and have a screen. Residents are instructed not to remove the screens, but some do anyway, especially to smoke outside their rooms, where smoking is banned.

About five feet beneath each window at most of the halls is a ledge designed to block sunlight from windows beneath them.

Both KU officials and students living in Oliver said they didn’t think students should be prohibited from opening the windows.

“It’d be ridiculous if they had to shut us in,” said Jenna Monheiser, a freshman from Blue Springs. “But we are college students and we can do stupid things.”

Emma Rieper, a freshman from Overland Park, agreed.

“There’s nothing (you can do),” she said. “People can easily walk downstairs to smoke. It was just a mistake.”

Todd Cohen, a KU spokesman, said officials thought it was easier to remind students about the danger of exiting their windows than to shut the windows permanently. Welding the windows shut would violate fire code, he said.

“You can make the place completely inhospitable or educate and appeal to people’s common sense,” he said.

Alex Swetnam, an Overland Park freshman, said a simple solution would be to allow smoking in some top floors. KU banned smoking in all its residence halls beginning in fall 2002.

“I think the problem is there’s no smoking rooms,” he said. “There would be no reason to go out there (on the ledge) otherwise.”

Cohen said he didn’t expect KU to change its nonsmoking policy.

“When you introduce smoking, you introduce the threat of fire, which would take a lot more lives,” he said.

Swetnam said he knew Wellhausen and had spoken with him several times.

“He was talkative,” Swetnam said. “We’ve only been here three weeks, but he was still one of our friends. I just feel really bad about this. I can’t imagine what that must be like for his parents. It’s an awkward moment.”