Thirty people at a massive college party were standing on a garage roof in Central California when it collapsed Saturday morning, injuring eight and sending four to the hospital, authorities said.
Over 1,000 students attended the party at off-campus housing near Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, a university of about 20,000 people, according to a deputy fire chief with the San Luis Obispo Fire Department. No one died in the collapse.
The damaged garage is located in the 300 block of Hathaway Street, according to the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department, several blocks from the college campus.
The party was being held for St. Patrick's Day and was not affiliated with Cal Poly, Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Gater said.
Pictures from the party showed it was still packed with people wearing green after sunrise. Twitter users and the school's newspaper, the Mustang News, which posted video of the collapse, were calling the party "St. Fratty's Day."
Collapse occurred at scene of party on Hathaway attended by over 1000 students. 7 students were injured. pic.twitter.com/H0EnEHEEaK — SLO City Fire (@SLO_City_Fire) March 7, 2015
The garage collapsed at about 6:20 a.m. with 30 people on top, Gater said. Some people may have been inside the garage, which was on a property with three adjoining homes.
One woman had moderate injuries while seven others had minor injuries. Four were taken to local hospitals, Gater said.
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Among the injured was a woman who was impaled in the thigh by a piece of wood when the roof collapsed.
An hour and a half before the roof collapse, San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly campus police were called out to the neighborhood because of complaints about the loud party. Officers issues underage-drinking and noise-violation citations.
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo released a statement at about 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning wishing those who were injured a speedy recovery and saying it was in contact with public safety agencies to find out what occurred and "decide how we will respond."
It did not indicate if any of the people who were hurt were students.
A tweet from the San Luis Obispo Fire Department initially said it was a "mass casualty incident."
