Uncle of Long Grove teen killed at Notre Dame supports remote cameras

University of Notre Dame’s decision to install a remote video system for its football practice fields and eliminate hydraulic lifts may be the good that results from the death of a Long Grove student, the victim’s uncle said Tuesday.

Declan Sullivan’s uncle, Michael Miley, said he hopes colleges and professional sports teams still using the lifts for videotaping will follow Notre Dame and pursue remote technology.

“Other kids may live longer because of the lessons learned from this,” said Miley, who has been a spokesman for Sullivan’s family.

Sullivan, 20, was on a scissor lift working for Notre Dame as videographer and recording a football practice when he died Oct. 27. The National Weather Service reported wind gusts reached 51 mph about the time the tower overturned.

In a statement, Notre Dame officials said work started Tuesday on the project that’ll include four remote-controlled cameras mounted on 50-foot poles at the football practice fields. The system is expected to be ready for spring practice March 23.

Remote-controlled cameras have been used for several years at the Chicago Bears indoor practice facility in Lake Forest, team spokesman Scott Hagel said. Video still is shot from lifts outside, he said.

At the University of Illinois, Sullivan’s death led to creation of an official written policy late last year regarding the use of a 25-foot hydraulic lift by videographers working at football practices. There are no plans for a remote video system.

U of I Assistant athletic director Kent Brown said the policy formalizes previously unwritten rules to not send anyone up on the lift when winds exceeded 25 mph, and that someone could come down at any time if there was a sense of danger.

Notre Dame officials said the “first-of-its-kind” outdoor remote video system was designed by Florida-based XOS Digital.

Cameras will be in temperature-controlled units, with a fiber-optic network sending video to an athletics complex room. The video will be edited and produced for coaches and players in the control room, officials said.

Notre Dame video department personnel will continue to manually operate cameras from two permanent structures on the sidelines at the practice fields.

“I said in the days after Declan’s death that we would do everything in our power to make changes to ensure that such an accident does not happen again — here or elsewhere,” said Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins.

Jenkins took responsibility for Sullivan’s death in an e-mail he issued in November. He said a continuing internal investigation by Notre Dame will be reviewed by former University of Arizona president Peter Likins, an engineer.

Sullivan’s death remains under investigation by the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Miley said nothing will bring back his nephew, so the family isn’t preoccupied with receiving the OSHA probe’s result.

“It’s pretty self-evident what happened,” Miley said. “An exact cause really isn’t part of the discussion by the family.”

Sullivan was a graduate of Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein. Hundreds of mourners attended his funeral Mass at St. Mary Catholic Church in Buffalo Grove.

XOS Digital made an unspecified donation to the Declan Drumm Sullivan Memorial Fund. The family and Notre Dame officials are discussing the most appropriate way to honor Sullivan at the school.

“We are committed to memorializing Declan’s zest for life and presence at Notre Dame in a meaningful and lasting way,” Jenkins said in the statement. “Our conversations with his family members will shape Notre Dame’s memorials of Declan in a manner that give authentic and proper tribute to their son and brother.”

Miley said Sullivan’s parents and siblings have been doing everything possible “to be a strong, positive family.”