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Man Plummets 10 Stories To His Death Down DC Hotel Boiler Shaft On New Year’s

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A 23-year-old man died after falling 10 stories down the boiler shaft of a Washington, D.C., hotel hours into the new year.

Police say John Leonard of Herndon, Va., climbed onto the roof of The Dupont Circle Hotel to get a good view of the city just before 2:30 AM Sunday, where he apparently tumbled down a shaft to the basement.

D.C. Fire and Metropolitan Police Department said that officers responded to 72 emergency calls between midnight and 1 am Sunday, more than one emergency per minute.

“It looks like a fall,” Rachel Schaerr, spokeswoman for the D.C. police, told The Washington Post. “He went up to the roof to catch a really good view,” Schaerr said.

Another person was on the roof at the time, possibly Leonard’s girlfriend, The Washington Post reported. Mark Caldwell, a manager of hotel, said the incident looked like “a tragic accident.”

D.C. Fire and EMS responded to a call about a body found in the chimney shaft in the basement of the hotel, but are still investigating how the fall occurred NBC Washington reports.

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