OLYMPIA — The Washington State Patrol’s report on its investigation into the carbon monoxide poisoning of a student at The Evergreen State College is expected to be released this week, the president of the Olympia college told the board of trustees on Friday.
It has been three months since Jonathan Rodriguez died in student housing.
State Patrol spokesman Chris Loftis confirmed the announcement on Friday. The release of the report, based on an investigation undertaken by a forensic engineering company, has been complicated by the recent death of a state trooper, he said.
Trooper Christopher Gadd, 27, was killed March 2 after being struck by a motorist on southbound Interstate 5 near Marysville. The trooper’s funeral procession will take place Tuesday and then the investigation should be released later in the week, Loftis said.
Rodriguez, 21, of DuPont, died Dec. 11 from exposure to carbon monoxide in modular housing at the college. Two other students, a 20-year-old woman and a 19-year-old woman, were hospitalized from exposure to the gas, but recovered, The Olympian has reported.
The incident was discovered by a student residence manager who couldn’t reach the three students inside the housing. An Evergreen police officer entered the unit, found the students unconscious and tried to revive them. The officer was poisoned by carbon monoxide as well, and was treated at the hospital, The Olympian previously reported.
The Evergreen board of trustees voted in January to spend as much as $1 million to pay for costs tied to the student’s death. The money will cover some or all of the cost of the State Patrol investigation, relocating students into other housing, and repairing campus housing, President Carmichael previously said.
Loftis couldn’t immediately explain why Evergreen would pay for the investigation and not the State Patrol.
During the board meeting, chair Karen Fraser shared some thoughts about Rodriguez.
“We remain in shock and sorrow over his untimely death on campus and we grieve for him and his family and his close friends,” she said.
Fraser told the board that Rodriguez received a nice tribute in the most recent issue of the Cooper Point Journal, the college’s student newspaper.
She quoted from a poem about Rodriguez. His favorite plant was the begonia and the poem uses the begonia as a metaphor for his life.
“In Begonia’s presence, one left feeling rejuvenated, feeling joyous, feeling filled with the light, the air, the water, the love, flowing around it, flowing within it,” Fraser said.
