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NYU Student Plunges From Roof After Taking Drugs, Police Say

By  Murray Weiss Serena Solomon and Trevor Kapp | January 28, 2014 9:53am | Updated on January 28, 2014 10:43am

 Titan Lee-Hai was an NYU student and an aspiring rapper.
Titan Lee-Hai
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EAST VILLAGE — An NYU freshman plunged 15 stories to his death from the top of an East Village dorm Monday morning after taking a batch of psychedelic mushrooms, stripping off his clothes, and pulling the fire alarm to get onto the roof, police said.

Titan Lee-Hai, 18, was found naked in the courtyard of Third North Residence Hall on Third Avenue near East 11th Street at about 3:20 a.m. Monday, according to police.

Lee-Hai, an aspiring rapper with the stage name Trizzy Kid, took the hallucination-inducing mushrooms with his roommate before he leaped from the roof, and now police are looking into whether there was something wrong with the drugs, according to police sources.

Shazi Khurshid, a fellow freshman, ran into a Lee-Hai moments before he plunged to his death, according to the New York Post.

Titan Lee-Hai
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Youtube/Titan Lee Hai

"I was in the elevator, and he just walked in and punched me in the face. He was naked when he walked in," Khurshid, 19, told the paper. "So, it was pretty obvious he was not in his senses."

Lee-Hai then went up to the rooftop, which can only be accessed by an emergency exit door that trips an automatic fire alarm, sources said.

The liberal studies major and Trinidad native, who did not leave any note in his room before leaping from the roof, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to police and his social media profile.

Psychedelic mushrooms can cause terrifying hallucinations and a bad trip can include “anxiety, confused, or disordered thinking and panic,” according to Brown University.

Lee-Hai's death marks the second time in recent months in which an NYU student was intoxicated and fell from a dorm.

In November, 19-year-old Asher Vongtau survived 36 hours wedged into a narrow space between an NYU dorm at 80 Lafayette St. and another building.

The liberal studies student suffered internal bruising and fractured his skull, pelvis and arm, according to a report.

Vongtau later told investigators that he had been drinking through the night before tumbling between the buildings.

NYU administrators planned to investigate Lee-Hai's death, school spokesman John Beckman said.

“We want to remind students of the availability of help around the clock at NYU," he said.