Police: Man killed in fall from LondonHouse hotel in Loop

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Police said a man was killed after he fell from a high floor of the LondonHouse hotel in the Loop Monday afternoon.

Chicago police said the 44-year-old man fell from the 20th floor at 85 East Wacker Drive shortly after 4 p.m. and landed on the sixth floor roof. The fall was fatal and, police said, appeared to be accidental.

Hotel officials said the man was not authorized to be at the hotel and it is unclear what he was doing on the 20th Floor.

"Officials at the hotel are working with the Chicago Police Department and other first responders regarding the death of a man who apparently fell from a 20th floor parapet wall to the sixth floor rooftop earlier this afternoon. He was not an employee of the hotel," said George Jordan, an executive at the LondonHouse hotel.

A parapet wall is a narrow wall that surrounds high floors of tall buildings.

"Usually they're eight to 12 inches wide, and it would go around the outside edge of the building," said Steve Sicurella, a contract worker familiar with parapet walls.

Hotel executives also offered their condolences to the man's family.

How the man got to the restricted area of the 20th floor between East Wacker and Michigan Avenue is unknown. Police are investigating whether or not the man may or may not have been authorized to be on the wall. But workers with that kind of high rise expertise said they take great care to avoid any chance of this kind of fatal fall.

"If you're working close to an edge like that, a lot of times you wear a harness and it's tied off to part of the structure," Sicurella said.

No further details about the victim have been released.