Articles Posted in Premises Liability

A one-year-old child had to be airlifted to an Atlanta hospital last month after she sustained serious injuries when a television set fell on her at a motel in Cherokee County. The accident happened just as a new study published in a medical journal reveals that the number of children injured by falling furniture, including large screen flat panel televisions, has risen dramatically over the past two decades.

In the motel incident, the child was injured when a 32 -inch television fell off the dresser, and onto her. She suffered a fractured skull.  It’s not clear what steps the motel management had taken to secure the T.V on to the dresser to prevent such tip overs. It appears that the motel management could have done a lot to keep their premises safe for parents of little children.

According to Consumer Reports, television tip over accidents generally occur when a child tries to climb on to the table or dresser on which the television is placed. Children below the age of five are more likely to be injured by falling televisions, and these accidents seem to be more common among boys. The most common injuries that result from falling television sets are skull fractures, which can consequently lead to brain injures. Such injuries can require extensive medical treatment, including surgeries, and also require long periods of physical rehabilitation.

Even after new safety standards were introduced and added to building codes in the country, children in Atlanta continue to be in danger of escalator injuries caused when their shoes or clothing get snagged in the gaps at the sides of the escalator.

A report last month highlights some of the most dangerous areas in Atlanta that have escalators concealing a high risk for accidents and injuries to children.These include Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (“MARTA”), as well as numerous malls where a number of these injuries occur every week. It’s not just children who have been at risk for injuries caused by escalators.Teenagers and adults have had their shoes and clothing snagged in the gaps.People have been dragged down when the edges of their coats were caught in these gaps, ending in a dislocation of the shoulder, and in other cases, have lost their balance and fallen over. Toes and feet have been badly mangled when their shoes have been caught in these gaps.

Many of these accidents have involved children’s shoes, especially Crocs. The problem has been severe enough for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to even warn about these, and confirm that these shoes had been worn by an overwhelming majority of people involved in escalator accidents.The shoes now come with a safety tag warning for such injuries.

On Sunday, a carnival worker was critically injured when he fell forty-five feet from the outside of a Roll-O-Plane carnival ride at the Plaza Fiesta on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.The outdoor carnival is operated by Gold Medal Shows.

According to witnesses, the worker was trying to secure a door of the ride when the ride started moving and he was hoisted into the air.The Roll-O-Plane is a bullet-shaped passenger cabin that spins upward by a single rotating arm.After losing his grip at the top of the ride, the worker plunged onto a steel support beam at the base of the ride.

Two teenage brothers were inside the ride with an unsecured door at the time of the accident.Their horrified mother watched from below while they were trapped atop the ride for twenty minutes.DeKalb County Firefighters rescued the teens.Initial reports blame human error for the mishap.

On Saturday, June 28^th, seventeen year-old Asia LeeShawn Ferguson, was decapitated when he was struck by the Batman roller coaster at Six Flags over Georgia in Austell, Georgia.

Witnesses report that Ferguson, who was with his family and a church group from South Carolina, scaled two perimeter fences with another teenage friend and entered a danger zone inside the ride area.

Although some witnesses indicate Ferguson was trying to retrieve a lost hat or possibly touch the feet of riders on the ride, Cobb County police dismissed those rumors as unsubstantiated.Instead, Ferguson and his friend may simply have been trying to re-enter the park from the parking lot rather than using the main entrance as required.

Varying reports have now appeared about a MARTA escalator incident on New Year’s Eve.At first the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, “a bunch rowdy college football fans lost their footing” when one of the Five Points MARTA station escalator’s malfunctioned.Eleven people were injured in the accident.

According to riders, the escalator suddenly began running backwards at four to five times its normal speed.The sudden reverse escalation caused the riders to fall to the stairs in a heap.Over 50 people were dropped to the station platform.One person sustained a broken leg, and 11 people were transferred to the hospital.

MARTA officials blamed the mishap on this group of “rowdies” and said “people should learn not to mess around.”Eyewitnesses disputed such behavior.Three days later MARTA admitted that three transit escalators in two stations failed that day. A MARTA spokesperson revealed that the braking system on two escalators failed at the Five Points station and one failed at the Georgia Dome station all on News Year’s Eve.The escalators were subsequently shut down and are under repair.The next day the Atlanta Journal Constitution demanded that MARTA “take aggressive steps to eliminate persistent equipment problems.”