On Oct. 27, 2010, Declan Sullivan, a junior film student at Notre Dame, was killed while filming football practice when the hydraulic lift he was on was felled by wind. Since his death, many have questioned how coaches, trainers and other adults could see fit to put a 20-year-old student in such a dangerous situation.

Sullivan himself expressed dismay to a member of the football staff when he learned practice would be held outside that day. Before heading out he tweeted "Gust of wind up to 60mph well today will be fun at work... I guess I've lived long enough :-/." An hour before his death, from up on the lift, he called the weather "terrifying."

In March, the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded a five-month investigation into Sullivan's death, fining the university $77,500 for failure to properly maintain and inspect equipment and for asking an untrained student to operate a scissor lift in dangerous conditions. Trying to assign a monetary value to a life is difficult enough to take, but even more troubling was that sections of the IOSHA report seem to contradict the story given by Notre Dame officials.

Head football coach Brian Kelly was quoted as telling investigators, "It was a beautiful day. It was 68 degrees and I remember looking up at 11:54 a.m. and the wind was 22 miles per hour." Despite claims that conditions were fine, another student videographer was initially told not use the lift that day, and still another was told to keep his lift only partially elevated. Both Kelly and athletic director Jack Swarbrick claimed that weather conditions were normal until a large gust of wind hit, but investigators say videos taken by Sullivan and other student videographers show jackets and pants "blowing and whipping" in the wind and the goal posts swaying.

Today the school released the results of its internal investigation. After a six-month study, Notre Dame concluded that no one person is responsible for Sullivan's death, but that the use of dated weather information and a lift more susceptible to tipping than most were the main factors in the accident. As a result, there will not be any individual discipline for coaches, assistants, trainers or otherwise.

The school did not have on-field wind readings, so the weather reports used were from before 2 p.m., while practice didn't start until almost 4 p.m. According to the report, the staff did not know that at 2:54 p.m., the weather service was reporting winds of 29 mph with up to 38 mph gusts. At the time of Sullivan's death, weather reports had increased the speed of the winds to 33 mph with 51 mph gusts.

"The report highlights that as the primary weakness in our procedures," said John Affleck-Graves, the university executive vice president, at a press conference today. "The lack of wind-measuring equipment on the field during the practice and the absence of any single individual with responsibility for monitoring the wind."

In the same presser, Peter Likins, an engineer and the former president of Arizona, said of the accident, "...there were a series of factors in the aggregate that led to this tragedy. Though a needless loss of life cries out for one to shoulder blame, the facts here do not support any single individual finding of fault."

The inconsistencies between the IOSHA report and the comments by Kelly, Swarbrick and other Notre Dame officials is troubling, to be sure. At the same time, placing blame on anyone in particular won't bring Sullivan back to life, nor will it erase the memory of this tragedy.

No one intentionally put the student in harm's way, but no one protected him, either.

No one and everyone is to blame.