Photos courtesy of Emily Anne Taylor

The deck on this house rented by Washington and Lee University students collapsed Friday night during a party. As many as 80 students were on the deck when it fell, according to a Rockbridge County building official.

A deck collapse that injured about 30 Washington and Lee University students at a Friday night party was apparently the result of the deck's "faulty attachment" to the house, according to a Rockbridge County building inspector.

Building Official Erich Schnetzler said bolts that should have secured the deck to the house -- dubbed the "County Seat" by students -- failed to penetrate a 6-inch beam beneath the house's wood siding and 3/4-inch timber sheathing. "It looks to me like the bolts never made it into the beam," said Schnetzler, who inspected the deck's wreckage Saturday.

With 75 to 80 students on the 440-square-foot deck, the structure pulled away from the side of the house and collapsed.

"The students on the deck heard a loud crack," Schnetzler said. "Everybody got real quiet, and then the whole thing just dropped."

"I heard the noise," said freshman John Sauer of Birmingham, Ala., who said he was inside the house when the deck collapsed. "The people inside went pretty crazy once we realized what exactly happened. My first instinct was to run, because I was certain the Lexington police were going to just start handing out citations as usual."

Freshman Drew Martin of Richmond said he was standing outside 15 feet from the deck -- having just left it to call for a ride home -- and watched as it dropped. "I think there was an initial shift before it all collapsed," he said. "Then the whole thing just kind of dropped. After it dropped, there was silence, then a single scream, and then it went into panic mode."

Martin said he was the first to call 911. Students gave up their shirts to help stanch bleeding while others tried to lift the deck to make sure it had not fallen on anyone below. "Had anyone been under the deck, they would have been killed," he said.

An initial report from the university stated that students had been under the deck, but witness accounts contradict that.

Washington and Lee officials said 22 students were treated at Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington after the deck collapsed about 11:20 p.m. Friday. Eight of the students arrived at the hospital in ambulances.

Schnetzler said his report on the cause of the deck's collapse will describe it as "failure due to faulty attachment." He added that in general the deck was built up to the standards of the county building code at the time of its construction.

Mitchell Shaner, co-owner of the house at 664 Greenhouse Road in Rockbridge County, which six students rent, said he is having an independent structural engineer inspect the remains of the deck. Shaner said the deck was built about 10 years ago when the inside of the house was renovated. The building permit was issued in 1998.

"The deck on this house was inspected in 2007 and there was nothing wrong with it then," Shaner said. "I'm sure the house was up to proper standards. The safety and well-being of every one of our tenants is our number one priority."

The general contractor who built the deck, J.W. Entsminger of Lexington's E and B Builders, said he added a center beam beneath the deck to give it extra support.

Dawn Watkins, dean of students at Washington and Lee, said school officials are already having discussions with landlords and city and county officials about "the minimum standards of properties."

Meanwhile, the students who rent the house wrote a letter to the editor of the Rockbridge Weekly, thanking rescue squad members for their prompt arrival. They also thanked hospital staff and W&L's Student Health Services.

"We realize the accident could have had even more significant [consequences] than those of which we are aware," said the letter, posted on the newspaper's Web site. "The porch collapse taught us all a valuable lesson of the importance of public safety and event planning."