Police Respond to Report of Man on Waveny Water Tower

A concerned high school coach who called police early Tuesday evening with a report of someone atop the Waveny water tower sent first responders to the site, prepared for the worst.  As it turned out, the man on the tower was Sam Beals, a "tower hand" who was aligning cellular equipment for Clearwire Corp.

The call came in at 5:43 p.m., said Lt. James George, not a time you'd expect to see workers on the tower.  "It's not normal," he told Patch, "I just thought, it could be a kid or an adult trying to hurt themselves or others."

Police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance arrived at Waveny while the high school cross country team was finishing a race, and soccer teams were practicing on the fields in the park and at the high school nearby.

George said the responders were particularly concerned "in light of what happened in New Jersey," referring to the recent suicide of a Rutgers student, who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and a friend circulated a video of the student on the internet.  On Monday, NCHS Principal Tony Pavia sent a note to students and parents about the incident.

"I took out my binoculars, and I could see he was just sitting there wearing a safety harness," George said.  "I talked to him to make sure everything was okay."

Beals, 22, works for A&A Communications, which is subcontracted to install new antennas on the tower.  "I looked down and I was like, 'Oh, man, I gotta call my boss'," he said.

Today was Beals first day on the job in New Canaan. "I was path aligning," he said. "We have these big dishes that have to look at one another. I was looking at a guy at another tower about three or four miles away."

George said most contractors who work on the tower contact the police department for access to the gated area.  Clearwire, which is working for Sprint, has direct access to the area, so police were not aware anyone was at the tower when the call came in.