So Great White has been fined “$7,000 for failing to ensure that its employees were properly protected from fire hazards, especially from the pyrotechnics that sparked the inferno.”
This particular sentence made me RAGE:
“The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Wednesday imposed an $85,200 levy against the owners, brothers Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, for what it called a “willful” violation by installing an exit door that swung the wrong way. ”
I had not heard about the exit doors which swung in, as opposed to out.
Maybe I have too much imagination. But I can’t stop myself from imagining those poor people. Those trapped people. Running to the exit door, en masse, and pushing against it, expecting it, of course, to swing open, as exit doors SHOULD. But instead, it remained shut, and the crowd, the panicked terrorized crowd, piled up against the door, meaning that, obviously, nobody would ever move back towards the inferno, in order to leave room for the exit door to open, swinging in.
This is just … it’s horrific. I wince, I wince. I can’t stop my mind from picturing being there. Being in that nightmare. Jesus Christ. I cannot stop myself from picturing the panic of those poor people.
Seems like $85,200 is a pretty small sum for such an enormous offense.
What kind of moron would install emergency doors that swing in? That kind of negligence should be a criminal offense.
I totally agree. That one detail, to me, is the most chilling part of the report. What terror, what panic must have ensued … You COUNT on exit doors to swing out. You COUNT on it.
It has long been established law (since, I think, the Triangle fire in NYC) that emergency exits must open outward. That the door was probably not originally meant to function as an emergency exit (converted warehouse or some such?) does not excuse the club operators – or the licensing authorities – from changing them.
what surprised and shocked me… topping off it all, was that one of the owners had known from his business experience how fast foam burns and what it does… where were their heads when they allowed fireworks inside a building?
it’s one thing to put them off outside in an open area, but it is downright stupid to shoot anything remotely resembling a firework in ANY building, whatever size, whatever the occasion.
that ought to be outlawed and punished with a heck of alot more than fines.
i have severe asthma. i know how it feels to try to shovel my driveway when someone is just burning wood in a neighborhood fireplace, or burning their trash in their backyard…. i can’t breathe then and i wheeze hard… it’s painful. unbelievably, unbearably painful. smoke stings the inside of my lungs…. i don’t need imagination to wonder what worse would be. as one neighbor has burned so heavily, that i couldn’t see the barn 30 feet from my kitchen window….. and i had to walk through it to get to my car to go to work…. and that smoke set off my nighthawk smoke detector.
I cannot tell you how many bars, clubs, and restaurants I worked at over the years that had doors that swung in or no emergency exit at all. It is an enforcement issue and a corruption issue.
Ever since that fire, I always plan multiple paths I would take out of a crowded room in case of a fire. I suggest everyone take 10 seconds to do the same when they enter a crowded area.
A little nothing goes a long, long way.