Teenager injured in fall at the abandoned Fruen Mill in Minneapolis

May 16, 2021 at 11:30PM
303 Thomas Ave. N., where the the Fruen Mill is located. Photographed in Minneapolis, Minn. on Thursday July 30, 2015. ] RACHEL WOOLF á rachel.woolf@startribune.com Owners of Glenwood will soon purchase the Fruen Mill with plans to demolish and rebuild a new project on the site.
The Fruen Mill in 2015. A teenage boy was seriously injured Friday, May 14, when he fell five stories at the abandoned mill in Minneapolis’ Bryn Mawr neighborhood, (Star Tribune file/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

A teenage boy was seriously injured Friday when he fell five stories at the abandoned Fruen Mill in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood, according to the Minneapolis Fire Department.

The boy, 17, apparently broke into the empty mill along with two 16-year-old girls before falling around 10:23 p.m. Firefighters found the boy by cutting through fencing and plywood to enter the mill, and then climbing down one story with a rescue basket to reach him, according to a statement from Melanie Rucker of the Fire Department.

He was taken to a hospital with serious injuries, she reported. The girls were not injured.

The site is commonly broken into by thrill seekers and graffiti artists, even though the owner installed fencing to keep people out. Climbers fell from 40 to 70 feet in three incidents at the same mill in 2005, 2014 and 2015. A man fell to his death there in 2006.

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about the writer

Matt McKinney

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Matt McKinney writes about his hometown of Stillwater and the rest of Washington County for the Star Tribune's suburbs team. 

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