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I am reading a book called Cause of Death - Memoirs of a Home Office Pathologist by Dr Geoffrey Garrett and Andrew Nott and came across this little gem that I just had to share (excuse the lengthy background, but it is 'intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative'):
At lunchtime on 8 May 1979 in the Woolworth's store in Piccadilly Gardens, Machester, around seventy people were sitting down to their meals in the restaurant on the second floor... Various disaplays were illuminated to show them off to their best advantage, the intention to catch the eye of any potential buyer. The lamps were powered through a system of extension wires leading back to several plugs that had been connected to a single socket on the far side of the room. The socket itself was hidden from view behind the stacks of chairs and sofas...
That was where the fire started... When the flames were spotted by staff a number acted promptly, both to tackle the blaze with extinguishers and to warn the customers. But no one rang the Fire Brigade...
Advised by an agitated assistant to leave everything and move, a seventy-year-old man looked up from his meal, irritably informed her that he had only just ordered his soup, and turned back to his food. Within minutes a dark blanket of smoke descended like a theatre safety curtain and separated him from the fleeing throng. He died.
Can anyone else think of examples of customers being so sucky that it cost them their lives?
At lunchtime on 8 May 1979 in the Woolworth's store in Piccadilly Gardens, Machester, around seventy people were sitting down to their meals in the restaurant on the second floor... Various disaplays were illuminated to show them off to their best advantage, the intention to catch the eye of any potential buyer. The lamps were powered through a system of extension wires leading back to several plugs that had been connected to a single socket on the far side of the room. The socket itself was hidden from view behind the stacks of chairs and sofas...
That was where the fire started... When the flames were spotted by staff a number acted promptly, both to tackle the blaze with extinguishers and to warn the customers. But no one rang the Fire Brigade...
Advised by an agitated assistant to leave everything and move, a seventy-year-old man looked up from his meal, irritably informed her that he had only just ordered his soup, and turned back to his food. Within minutes a dark blanket of smoke descended like a theatre safety curtain and separated him from the fleeing throng. He died.
Can anyone else think of examples of customers being so sucky that it cost them their lives?
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