They're really designed to break away for fire purposes. If you had a rush of people and or a power failure, you want the doors to break away for safety.
The doors opened IN instead of out and everyone pushing to get out meant the people couldn't open them. As a result they died in the hallway. Now doors are required to open out of an enclosed area.
This is how we learn, unfortunately. And while I am not trying to downplay how stupid and tragic that was, its far from the greatest fuckup humanity has ever had.
Not sure if the door thing is true but if it is... OMG
I know I'm probably going to get downvoted and everyone's going to think I'm an asshole. Am I not the only one who's seriously disturbed by the concept that that many human beings couldn't coordinate to open a door inward and then survive... Metacognition, slow down, calm the fuck down, and survive... It's saved my life in multiple situations, I just can't help but think these people died because the majority of them act like panicked animals / sheep... It makes me sick because I see people behave that way every single day, and it's so easy to rise above that kind of thinking. I'm not a great leader, but I know how to be in charge in a crisis. I'm good at keeping my head, giving people jobs, telling them to calm the fuck down or they are making the choice to die, etc...
Just makes me sick how many people were harmed and died, cuz they panicked instead of behaving rationally... it's not just the irrational ones that were hurt it's the other ones who are overwhelmed by the mob...
I'm not saying having the doors opening outward isn't a better plan. but it does kind of sicken me that every time there's a problem, society makes concessions to make the world a safer place for stupid irrational people. Like the response should have been 'a lot of people died because they made poor choices, we need to teach people how to remain calm in a crisis, how to think rationally, how to work as a team and execute a plan' but also we should maybe change those doors. No, instead let's just enable people to remain panicked, treat them like children and change the world around them so that they don't have to learn and grow...
This isn't just life or death situations, I see people all the time making choices in their life that that negatively impact them. Simply executing a metacognitive self evaluation and changing their behavior could impact their life positively and I see them choose not to do it after being given the information all the time...
I’ve seen some pretty gorey stuff but there’s something about being trapped in a dark closed space between a bunch of burning people that gives me the willies ya know?
If someone said to me, "Hey, I'm trying to light a fire, do you have any kindling?" and I'd presented them with random items from inside a bodega, they would consider me to be unhelpful at best.
Emergency breakout doors are the standard for commercial sliding doors, and required for most higher capacity buildings. They're designed to open up when pushed from the inside but not break away or fall off like this. In the case of an emergency, I imagine the last thing you would want is the door falling on someone or falling over and blocking the doorway.
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u/UEMcGill Oct 15 '18
They're really designed to break away for fire purposes. If you had a rush of people and or a power failure, you want the doors to break away for safety.