When the seats transferred from another cinema were not compatible, and no-one spotted the mistake
What happened?
A man went to the cinema with his wife at the Vue in Star City Centre, Birmingham in March 2018. When the film was over, the 24 year-old realised he could not find either his keys or his phone. Thinking they may have slipped down the side of the seat, he got up and went under the seat to look, but very quickly the footrest started to come down on him.
His wife tried to hold the footrest up when she realised what was happening. She alerted staff who tried to release the man for about ten to fifteen minutes. They were unable to get the button which operated the footrest to work, and eventually had to break it off.
The man was taken to hospital by paramedics, where he died a week later from a hypoxic brain injury. The inquest was told the seat was missing a bar that would have allowed him to be released by hand.
The seats in the cinema had previously been sent from another in the same city, but the council’s investigation revealed that a number of those seats had the wrong type of foot-rest actuators fitted (push-pull type). As the actuator was physically attached to the footrest it ‘pulled’ the footrest down and this resulted in an entrapment risk being present.
Following the accident, fifteen of the hundred and forty-one powered reclining seats across the three screens at the cinema were found to have the wrong type of actuators fitted at the footrests.
Legal Outcome
Vue Entertainment Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that persons were not exposed to risk to their health and safety and failing to make a suitable and safe risk assessment under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management and Safety of Work Regulations 1999 respectively in April 2021.
They were fined £750,000 and ordered to pay court costs of £130,000 and a £170 victim surcharge.
What can we learn from what happened?
An extraordinary accident. It is a fair assumption that when people go to the cinema, they consider it an extremely low risk decision, and the most discomfort they will experience will be associated with the film they are watching.
While this outcome should have been foreseen by the cinema operators, and there was clearly a missed opportunity to assess the seats’ safety when they were relocated, the potential for the visit to end in such a tragedy would not have been remotely contemplated by the public.
Source of Information
SHP Online