MacKenzie Elmer, and Charly Haley

Des Moines Register

A decorated honor student, Peri Sagun would have graduated from middle school next week had she not lost her life in a hammock accident over the weekend.

The 13-year-old girl died Saturday when a brick pillar collapsed onto the hammock she and her sister were sharing outside their Des Moines home, according to a police report.

Peri had set up the hammock with her 16-year-old sister outside their house, on the 3500 block of Lincoln Place Drive, tying one end to a tree and the other end to a 5-foot-tall brick light post, the report states.

Peri jumped into the hammock while her sister was sitting on it, and the brick light post collapsed on top of her head. Her sister ran to the house, yelling for her father, who tried to do CPR and first aid on his daughter until emergency responders arrived, according to the report.

She was rushed to Mercy Medical Center, where she died at 12:52 p.m.

“She was a person who was friendly and happy and always wanted to do her best,” said Nancy Dowdle, principal at St. Augustin School. Peri started there in kindergarten and was due to graduate next week with her class of 24 eighth-grade classmates.

The school held a prayer service for grades 5 through 8 Monday. A priest gave scripture readings, and some of Peri’s classmates read testimonials or shared stories about the young, ambitious athlete.

She would have been named a Presidential Scholar at graduation, an award given to students with high scores in reading, math and science on Iowa Assessments and for being on the honor roll. But Peri’s name has graced the honor roll since she started school, Dowdle said.

“She was very busy and very well-rounded,” Dowdle said, listing off Peri’s extracurricular activities, which included volleyball, dance, gymnastics, the school musical and state tennis. “She was very bright and considerate of others.”

Peri already knew she wanted to get into interior design when she grew up, Dowdle said, and she talked about it all the time. She would have attended Roosevelt High School next year, as a freshman.

St. Augustin School is planning to do something special for her on graduation day as a tribute to her time there, Dowdle said.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Iles Funeral Home in Des Moines.

Police wrote in their report of the accident that the brick column supporting the hammock was placed several inches in the ground with no reinforcement. The rectangular-shaped pillar was about 2-square-feet wide, made entirely of bricks, according to the report.

Phil Delafield, community development director with the city of Des Moines, who oversees building inspections and permits, said there are no laws regulating brick light posts like the one involved in this accident because the structure is considered decorative. This means there are no regulations on how much weight the structure is supposed to be able to hold or how it is supposed to be reinforced.

There are no permits required for the construction of these decorative structures, he added.