Lawmaker wants rails on Capitol steps

Published 10:25 am Tuesday, November 8, 2011

BATON ROUGE (AP) — A state legislator says he wants railings added to the front stairs of the state Capitol.

Rep. Steve Pugh tells The Advocate a 9-year-old was injured after falling about 25 feet last week.

Pugh said the accident occurred Friday soon after he gave a tour of the State Capitol to students on a field trip from Holy Ghost Elementary School in Hammond. He said the victim was one of those students.

Pugh, who didn’t see the incident, said he has worried for years about children playing on the steps, which rise about two stories to the main entrance. On either side of the steps are wide platforms in front of large statues. Visitors often climb on the platforms, which have no rails.

“Is it going to take somebody dying before they allow railings?” Pugh said. “The next time could be a lot worse.”

Senate President Joel Chaisson II said Monday in a prepared statement that the Legislature will erect temporary warning signs “in the area to instruct the public to stay off the elevated areas adjacent to the steps.”

A Senate staffer, Brenda Hodge, told authorities she witnessed the accident, according to a Louisiana State Police report released late Monday after The Advocate filed a public records request. The victim’s name was blacked out on the report.

Hodge reported seeing about 20 children playing on the second-level landing, peering over the edge. She said after she yelled for them to stay away from the side, the children moved back, the report states.

Then a young boy rushed to the edge, Hodge told police.

“He placed his toes over the edge as you would on a diving board preparing for a dive. He then leaned over, held his arms out to his side and then he just kept going over the edge, feet first and slightly at an angle,” Hodge said in her statement. “There were other children on the landing at the time, but none were near him.”

After the fall, the Legislature’s emergency medical staff treated the child, who repeatedly said, “I shouldn’t have done it,” according to the incident report. He was taken to a hospital.

Pugh said the boy broke a leg, his collarbone and his ankles. Pugh said he had just spoken to the boy’s family, who told him the child was doing “as well as could be expected.”