I am shocked by the number of buildings which have low walls or low sides to escalators. Low walls may be within safety regulations, but every year you read of accidents.
At SIM (Singapore Institute of Management) I took a photo of students sitting on a wall. When I looked over the edge, I was horrified to see that there was a sheer drop the other side onto a solid concrete floor.
What could go wrong?
1 You only need one person to start a jovial slapping match, play fighting.
2 Or to dodge an insect,
3 Or lean back against somebody who is sitting on an edge,
4 Or to drop a cap or phone and reach out to try to grab and lose your balance ...
5 Suicides
Time for architects and designers to find ways of designing safer buildings.
Time for students at schools and colleges and polytechnics universities to be given a competition to design cheap but safe walls with views - and places to sit. If they had seats in the corridor against the inner wall, the students would be less likely to perch on the higher wall over the sheer drop.
Deaths from falls take place not just in Singapore but worldwide. A quick search produced reports of falls, usually fatal, in Singapore, China, Thailand, India, Europe, UK, and Central American.
DEATHS & DANGERS
EUROPE
BBC reports Balcony deaths - eleven falls in three months - Magaluf, Spain
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44473177
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/australian-couple-fall-to-death-while-taking-selfie-above-beach-in-portugal-a3861516.html
Singapore report of place where walls were 1.6m or lower
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/parents-seek-answers-after-teen-falls-to-death-from-sky-garden
17 year old dies in Singapore:
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/man-injured-after-falling-from-fourth-floor-of-orchard-central
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/teen-who-fell-death-orchard-central-wanted-video-taken-first-hand-witness
CHINA
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/2-toddlers-fall-to-their-deaths-in-china-mall-after-mother-loses-grip-near-balcony
THAILAND
https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/thai-student-falls-off-balcony-death-looking-phone-signal/
INDIA
https://www.ndtv.com/bangalore-news/18-month-old-baby-falls-from-escalator-at-bengaluru-metro-station-dies-1984346
UK
https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/03/four-dogs-a-week-fall-30-feet-off-this-low-wall-8004024/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/07/commuter-dies-after-falling-from-an-escalator-at-canary-wharf-tube-station
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10892221/Two-teenage-students-die-after-falling-from-south-London-balcony-while-having-sex.html
CENTRAL AMERICA
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6273793/Pictured-Woman-filmed-falling-death-trying-selfie-27th-floor-balcony.html
USA
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20825783 ('falls are common')
https://www.foxnews.com/us/un-diplomat-falls-to-death-from-balcony-in-new-york-after-trust-game-report-says
WORLDWIDE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_selfie-related_injuries_and_deaths
https://www.ranker.com/list/what-its-like-to-fall-to-your-death
With a little more effort, we could reduce the numbers of deaths. We need a change in regulations, balcony heights, windows which cannot open wide enough to climb out, more accountability, and co-ordinated and persistent efforts to bring about changes to architecture and actions.
REMEDIES
Some well-known accidents and suicide points:
Golden Gate Bridge, USA.
What is already being done?
1 Announcement on the Singapore MRT telling the elderly and people with young children or anybody feeling unwell to use the lifts.
2 Signs in Singapore tell people not to sit on parapets 'for your own safety'.
I suggest adding CCTV, warnings that you are on CCTV, and fines for doing so.
3 San Francisco banned opening windows in hotels after a series of suicides.
4 USA suicide bridge - friend of victim put up notice to save others
5 Prosecute anybody who pushes anybody off a bridge or encourages them to jump
6 Ban videos of dangerous activities (such as jumping from building to building) which give glory to those performing such actions and could encourage others to copy
7 Remember that stunt men and women in film do a health and safety assessment first. Even so, several cases of accidents occur.
8 Telephone lines to help services on Golden Gate Bridge, USA
9 Viktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy, reduced the student suicide rate to zero in the 1930s in Vienna, Austria
For a start:
1 Put up barriers
2 Raise walls
3 Insert warning signs like the ones at accident blackspots listing numbers of deaths
4 fine people for doing dangerous acts,
5 Provide seating away well back from lookout points.
6 Build stepped buildings to minimise external and internal drops
7 Insert glass walls alongside escalators
8 Make plant barriers
9 Ensure balconies do not have ladder type horizontal bars which children can climb
10 Ban the carrying oo unsecured babes in arms on escalators
11 Build lifts nearer escalators so mothers with babies have less far to walk to reach one Offer 24 hour service for spare keys to stop youngsters who lose keys from trying to climb up balconies.
12 Insert 'sleeping policemen' to prevent drunks trying to use surfaces beside escalator as slides.
Oddly, you are not allowed to keep a cat in a high rise building unless you have a high barrier. Yet you can live without a barrier even if have a family with babies, toddlers, teenagers, and homesick maids.
Stay safe. As the British road safety advertisement used to say:
QUOTATION: The life you save may be your own.
Safety measures:
https://www.youngparents.com.sg/family/7-ways-prevent-escalator-accidents/
Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.
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