Woman falls to her death from gallery inside St Paul’s dome
A WOMAN died yesterday after plunging 100ft from inside the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral.
She fell from the Whispering Gallery, landing on the marble tiled floor below.
First aiders tried to save her as they waited for paramedics but she was pronounced dead at the scene in central London.
Police were last night investigating, though they said the death was not being treated as suspicious.
Running round the base of the dome, the Whispering Gallery has chest-height metal railings all along its narrow walkway.
Visitor Reidan Fredstrom, 38, said: ‘I got to the entrance around 10.30am or so and one of the people who check bags was very upset and crying.
‘Several police officers went running in, and about ten minutes later, a man who works at St Paul’s told another tourist that someone had been badly injured and that they were not letting people in.’
A spokesman for the cathedral said staff were ‘deeply saddened’, adding: ‘Although robust procedures for emergency situations are in place… it does not lessen the shock we feel.’
Tourists wept outside the building, which was shut following the incident. Jack Finch, 27, who works nearby, said: ‘There were two police cars and two ambulances… and police officers telling people they couldn’t go inside. It is very sad.’
St Paul’s cancelled yesterday’s national service for seafarers but was due to reopen today.
The Whispering Gallery gets its name from a quirk of acoustics that makes a whisper against its walls audible on the opposite side.