Woman killed by gargoyle statue of a church in Chicago, Ill. occurred Thursday at around 12 p.m. The woman killed by gargoyle statue is as horrific as it sounds especially as the 34-year-old woman is engaged to be married to a man with whom she has two children with.
According to the Associated Press, the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office identified the victim as Sara Bean. The woman killed by gargoyle incident happened while Bean was walking back from lunch with her fiancé.
Police said Bean died after the masonry fell from the bell tower of the old Second Presbyterian Church and struck her in the head, the Chicago Tribune reported.
According to Mimi Simon, a spokeswoman of the Building Department, the woman killed by gargoyle incident took place after a gust of wind forced a metal star at the top of the church's tower to fall off. After the metal came loose on the church's outer wall, it removed the gargoyle's head on the way down, which in the end struck an innocent bystander.
Metro reports that the dislodged metal came into contact with the decorative gargoyle on the church's southeast tower, breaking its head off from its body.
City officials said woman killed by gargoyle happened almost instantly as the decorative rock landed directly on her head.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, authorities said Bean died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
What made the woman killed by gargoyle incident especially tragic was that Lance Johnson, Bean's fiancé and the father of her two children, was about marry her in the next few months.
The Second Presbyterian Church is only blocks from their home. Bean and Johnson have two sons together, ages 9 and 14, according to the Sun-Times.
Witness Crystal Harris was at a bus stop near where the woman killed by gargoyle incident occurred. She told the Sun-Times that called 911 after seeing the horrific accident.
Harris said Johnson "was screaming and rolling around on the floor and just hysterical. He was trying to get cars to stop to help, but they kept going. They must have thought he was a crazy person. He stepped into traffic and one of the cars honked at him, and he threw his umbrella into the air."
Bean's sister-in-law, Candice Willis, also told the Sun-Times, "It's horrible. It really just came out of nowhere."
Meanwhile, another witness, a local man named Broderick Adams was at his fifth-floor apartment across the street when the woman killed by gargoyle incident took place. He said he ran outside to help after seeing the horrific accident.
Adams told the Chicago Tribune, "I saw that crack on her head and thought, 'She's definitely dead.'"
According to reports, the stone gargoyle weighed approximately 30 pounds.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that according to Reuters report, the church has already had a history of code violations. However, in 2012 and 2013, the Second Presbyterian Church was cleared of these problems.
If the church had violations in the past but was still allowed to operate, then who is to blame for this seemingly innocent accident where woman killed by gargoyle happened?
Built in 1874, Chicago's CBS affiliate reported that the ancient church failed to pass building inspections between 2007 and 2011.
According to the Washington Post, the Sun-Times reported that one of the church's violations included "failing to maintain exterior walls of a building or structure free from holes, breaks, loose or rotting boards or timbers and any other conditions which might admit rain or dampness to the walls."
In 2011, the city even went to court to get code-violation fines levied against the church. However, the Tribune reports that by the time the case was filed, the church had already come into compliance.
As of the current moment, Chicago's Department of Buildings is inspecting the structure.
Because of the accident where woman killed by gargoyle happened, Reuters reports that the Second Presbyterian Church released a statement on Friday saying it was "deeply sorry at the death."
The church added that it was "one of the city's oldest and a national historic landmark" and on Friday, they are putting up protective scaffolding.
Denise Conway, an office administrator told Reuters, "It's going up as we speak" and that the church will remain open.
Woman killed by gargoyle incident could have been prevented if the protective scaffolding had been put up earlier, or if authorities had been stricter with inspections. Hopefully nobody will suffer the same fate as Bean. Meanwhile, it is unknown whether Bean's family will be pressing charges.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
