Boy killed in rotatin restaurant.!!!

cluelusshusbund said:
Which is responsible for this death... the parents for lettin ther child wonder off... or the design of the rotatin restaurant.!!!
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Management. For not having applicable warning signs displayed (should that be the case); or failing to begin with to just outright ban children and their exploratory ways from such a restaurant environment. As well as management having too much confidence in the automatic safety system to handle every possible contingency or quirk.
 
This makes no sense.

Who designs a fixed, rotating table next to a stationary wall? What management allows that to be installed in their restaurant? What safety inspector green lights that?

The technology for keeping people safe around moving parts has been well-developed since the before articulated streetcars, it was developed for revolving doors, more than a century ago.
 
DrKrettin said:
Good grief - parents letting a kid wander off in a restaurant? Why not?
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Aa a retired Safety officer

Design of the floor

Full stop

The situation is you have members of the public walking around in a operating machine without adequate safeguards in place

Totally unacceptable

A cutoff system is NOT a adequate safeguard if it operates AFTER damage has been caused

First rule of safety

Design out any problems

Second

Provide ADEQUATE safeguards. As stated a cutoff system needs to operate to stop the machine BEFORE damage caused

Third

Personal Protective Equipment obviously impractical

Design of the floor

I don't have any details about how many revolving restaurants there are or details of any such tragic circumstances

I have only dined at one

That was during my training as a midwife

Years before I became a Safety officer so I was not paying attention to safety features then

Only the lady I had taken to dinner

My heart goes out to the family

:)
 
cluelusshusbund said:
Which is responsible for this death... the parents for lettin ther child wonder off... or the design of the rotatin restaurant.!!!
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No young child should be allowed to wander loose in any restaurant: they have hot food in transit, sharp implements, furniture that can be upset - plus staff and other patrons who have better things to do than minding strangers' kids. The parents probably didn't train the little guy very well in how to behave in public. But they couldn't be expected to foresee this particular danger.
I don't imagine the management could, either.
Design team might have done more and better testing - but if they work for the usual corporate boss, the sales department had already made promises on an impossible deadline without consulting them, and the execs kept telling the engineers, "It'll be fine. Just get it the fuck done!"
Tragedy: many faults; no absolute responsibility.

(When I read the thread title, I was mystified by what kind of food 'rotatin' might be and why it's deadly to children.)
 
Jeeves said:
But they couldn't be expected to foresee this particular danger.
I don't imagine the management could, either.
Design team might have done more and better testing - but if they work for the usual corporate boss, the sales department had already made promises on an impossible deadline without consulting them, and the execs kept telling the engineers, "It'll be fine. Just get it the fuck done!"
Tragedy: many faults; no absolute responsibility.
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Cowpat

Absolute responsibility is with the design

As possibly Judge Judy would say

Kids will be kid's and do kids things

IT IS / WAS A FORSEEABLE PROBLEM

Any engineers and / or Safety officers signing of on any assessment based on get the job done mentality should be cleaning out cesspools

Design of the floor

:)
 
For devil's advocate balance...

The restaurant has been operating since 1976, with no firm counter-indications yet of its rotating feature having not being native to it since the start (or early on). A renovation in 2013 refers to its motion as "long part of the Sun Dial’s allure", and thereby is ambiguous language at best. Should this be the only tragic accident in 41 years, then needless to say... There are probably conventional restaurants that have probabilistically suffered one or more incidents during similar stretches of time.
 
Jeeves said:
No young child should be allowed to wander loose in any restaurant: they have hot food in transit, sharp implements, furniture that can be upset - plus staff and other patrons who have better things to do than minding strangers' kids. The parents probably didn't train the little guy very well in how to behave in public. But they couldn't be expected to foresee this particular danger.
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All the tables next to the outer wall are a death trap for certan size children who only need to wander no farther than beside ther own table.!!!

Design team might have done more and better testing
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When i read that the tables was atached to the floor wit a 4" to 5" space between the tables an wall... i didnt need any testin to figer out the place shoud be closed for repair.!!!

Once the child moved his head between the table an wall it was likely hopelessly wedged in a couple of seconds an less than 5 seconds befor his head was crushed.!!!
 
cluelusshusbund said:
All the tables next to the outer wall are a death trap for certan size children who only need to wander no farther than beside ther own table.!!! [...] When i read that the tables was atached to the floor wit a 4" to 5" space between the tables an wall... i didnt need any testin to figer out the place shoud be closed for repair.!!! [...]
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The question there would be whether customized furniture was part of the original design and its placement dictated by the same (like some Frank Loyd Wright creation) -- or if items like tables were a variable left to ownership, management, and consultants to later choose / buy / supply; and for safety inspectors to approve the locations where they would be fixed.

Considering the 41 year span and the renovations in 2013, it seems unlikely the original architect(s) slash plan had anything to do with the current furniture. (Barring again, a FLW type degree of customization and idolization of the designer that warranted precise preservation of those elements). Who knows to what extent the recent refurbishing was a mixture of ad hoc changes and following an expert's scheme to integrate such with the restaurant's historical dynamics.

There have been other fatal accidents in the building as a whole in the past, but the offered ones are unrelated to the restaurant's rotation feature. A worker got locked in a kitchen freezer last year; and a boy drowned in the hotel's pool. The kind of stuff that probabilistically occurs in conventional eateries and lodgings over spans of time.

- - - - -

EDIT / ADDITION: The hotel was designed by a famed architect (John Portman). But still unclear whether he personally mandated placement of the tables in the original scheme of the Sun Dial restaurant; and if so, whether or not such fine details were "sacred" enough to be maintained decades later in the course of the renovation.
 
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C C said:
Considering the 41 year span and the renovations in 2013, it seems unlikely the original architect(s) slash plan had anything to do with the current furniture. (Barring again, a FLW type degree of customization and idolization of the designer that warranted precise preservation of those elements). Who knows to what extent the recent refurbishing was a mixture of ad hoc changes and following an expert's scheme to integrate such with the restaurant's historical dynamics.
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Yeah who knows... but a perty simple fix woud be to un-bolt the tables from the floor an leave 12" space between the tables an the outer wall.!!!
 
cluelusshusbund said:
Yeah who knows... but a perty simple fix woud be to un-bolt the tables from the floor an leave 12" space between the tables an the outer wall.!!!
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Or tack a slab of plastic onto the inner leg so it nearly touches the wall and leaves no gap.
If someone had thought of it.
Line up all the people who should have noticed the potential problem (Anyone can see it in retrospect. Did anyone bring it to a supervisor's or manager's attention before anything happened? )
and could have thought of a solution and should have decided which solution was best, and should have scheduled the repairs and should have authorized the budget for the solution, and apportion the blame among them.
 
cluelusshusbund said:
Yeah who knows... but a perty simple fix woud be to un-bolt the tables from the floor an leave 12" space between the tables an the outer wall.!!!
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Yep. But as far as the opening question as to who / what garners the blame (parents or the design)... John Portman's design of the rotating restaurant is potentially exonerated if placement of the tables was a variable delegated to later interior coordinators that owners / management hired and whose choices safety inspectors approved. Or if he did specify strict placement of furniture in the original plans (and such was spaced sufficiently wide and went unchanged for 37 years), then responsibility shifts to the 2013 renovation crew for changing the scheme; or to management and safety consultants for approving their narrower alteration.
 
C C said:
Yep. But as far as the opening question as to who / what garners the blame (parents or the design)... John Portman's design of the rotating restaurant is potentially exonerated if placement of the tables was a variable delegated to later interior coordinators that owners / management hired and whose choices safety inspectors approved. Or if he did specify strict placement of furniture in the original plans (and such was spaced sufficiently wide and went unchanged for 37 years), then responsibility shifts to the 2013 renovation crew for changing the scheme; or to management and safety consultants for approving their narrower alteration.
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Standard safety question

Are / were there any legal safety standard requirements at time of ORIGINAL construction?

Did the ORIGINAL plan and construction pass all the applicable standards?

Were there any changes to ORIGINAL standards which were mandatory to implement?

Were the renovations approved to take into account any updated legal safety requirements?

And a few biggies

IF safety standards were present WERE THEY SUFFICIENT?

WHO (if anybody) is / was responding for maintaining any safety requirements?

WERE unauthorised changes made to the layout which compromised safety?

How much training is / was given to personnel about safety and importance of obtaining permission or at least checking with safety officer about proposed changes?

There is much more involved

BUT

frequently overlooked are the following

What can we learn from this?

How can we prevent this happening again?

Are there any other surprises out there?

:)
 
The Sun Dial restaurant also underwent a a major makeover in 1998. Yet another intervening stage between now and Portman's original 1976 conception.

The total redesign in 2013 happened as part of a complete renovation for rest of the hotel.

  • In partnership with Atlanta architecture firm Cooper Cary, Atlanta interior designer Carolyn Auger of Blackdog Studio and contractor Balfour Beatty, every interior element of the hotel from the redesigned lobby, all 1,073 guest rooms and suites, and the revolving Sun Dial Restaurant, Bar and View, has been revamped to allow leisure and business travelers to work, play, sleep and dine in a completely refreshed environment. [...] “This renovation has redefined the Westin Peachtree Plaza, ensuring we will stay on the map as a premier travel destination and meeting location.” http://m.hotelinteractive.com/artic...emvAD=480x800&nbcol=0|unknown&nbcol=0|unknown
 
Michael 345 said:
frequently overlooked are the following

What can we learn from this?

How can we prevent this happening again?

Are there any other surprises out there?

:)
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Once appropriate punishment has been meted out, the lessons are usually learned. This very same thing probably won't happen again, because people are aware of the particular hazard now and will be looking for similar design flaws and omissions in other restaurants.
But there are always surprises. There are always accidents.
Nobody ever predicts every possible accident. They just don't think of everything that will go wrong - until it does - and then it's so obvious.
 
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