We had a false alarm go off in the building where I work last week. The elevators automatically shut down forcing the use of the fire escapes. The building is 22 floors. I was lucky in that I’d just taken the elevator to the first floor to step outside on a break. When they finally let us back in, I wondered what someone with mobility issues is expected to do had the building been on fire. Just die? Have a kind soul carry them? With most people wfh at least a couple of days per week, this seems really dangerous for anyone who might get stranded.
Usually the evacuation plan includes people with wheel chairs going into the stairwells. Stairwells can withstand fire longer than the rest of the building. And, yes, there are usually people designated to carry or help those with mobility issues.
I can help carry an old fashioned wheelchair down a staircase, but fancy electric ones can weigh hundreds of kilos.
An evacuation chair seems like a much better solution there.
I believe there should be slide sheets/ sleds and/or evacuation chairs in place for this.
I used to work in a school with disabled kids, so I did a few fire drills.
As other people here have said, there are areas like stairwells where the kids with mobility issues waited (with adults, of course!) during fire alarms. Fire crews would’ve been told about us and come and got those kids first in the event of an actual emergency.
there are areas like stairwells where the kids with mobility issues waited (with adults, of course!)
Lol imagine if the adults were like “ok good, you stay here, I’m out, bye”
That’s part of my job. Our district covers several cities, so several different fire departments. Some have suggested meeting spots on each floor. Some have provided slings. Our schools all have evac chairs. They suck and they’re dangerous. If you can have someone carry your chair,someone else block traffic, and one or both of them help you back into your chair afterwards bottom bumping down the stairs is what i would do. Otherwise, go to the meeting spot.
We had a few evac chairs, but I think you needed training to use them and I never had the training!
The building manager should (and may be legally required to) have a fire department approved emergency plan that specifically addresses this question. Usually, the plan will be for you to await rescue.
A modern, up-to-code high rise building will have designated “places of refuge” that are designed to withstand heat and smoke, such as a pressurized stairwell with fire doors. In older buildings that don’t have something like that, the plan might call for disabled people to go to the nearest (unprotected) stairway, or it might call for them to remain in their office/apartment and “defend in place”. If possible, call 911 (or equivalent) to notify rescuers of your location.
I’ve been to a few older office towers where the plan was basically “in the event of a fire, people who can’t walk down stairs will die horribly, so those people are not allowed above the ground floor.”
Having a coworker with one leg, it meant a lot of shuffling meetings around to get the meeting room on the ground floor, but they were very meticulous about it.
Kind of limits their upward mobility, I would imagine.
And I absolutely intended the double entendre, because I can see how that could limit the ability to get into more executive positions, if the ceo or vp is required to come to the ground floor in order to talk to them, instead of two doors down the hall.
When I worked in a high rise we had floor fire wardens per office, and we had to have a plan on who would carry injured or otherwise immobile people down the stairs. I had an ankle surgery at one point and had a designated carrier, and a secondary for when they were out of office.
My university used to have a bag thing that was made to slide people down the stairs.
They repeatedly asked me if it would require it in case of emergency but since arthritis makes walking painful but not impossible, especially when adrenaline kicks in and my choices are pain or a fiery death, I never had to practice with the thing.
My high-school was build against a hill luckily but since some of the evacuation included leaving through the windows if the hallway is on fire I’m assuming the idea was to lift disabled people through it.
This makes a lot of sense. There’s a person in our building who has a limitation in his movement who I noticed works on the first floor. I only saw him going into the building (rather than out) once, but he entered a space on the first floor and a security guard held the door for him. I wondered, at the time, if that was a deliberate accommodation: if someone who can’t operate a heavy door works right next to the security checkpoint, there will always be someone available to hold it for them. Thanks!
To add to this, modern commercial buildings are built with specifically engineered “fire partitions” throughout the structure, such as stairwells and egress pathways. In the most critical areas these are usually 2 or 3 hour rated, meaning that they are designed to withstand a structural fire for 2 to 3 hours before becoming compromised.
In America at least, modern commercial construction is exceptionally fire-resistant.
Source: I build hospitals.
Similar question I’ve wondered about… If you truly need one of those powered rideable shopping carts how do you get from your car to the cart and how do you return the cart?
My mom uses those.
Answer: they’re not for fully disabled people. A fully disabled person will have their own. The type of person who needs one can walk for a little bit, stand up sit down, all that; but staying on their feet for the time it takes to grocery shop would be either extremely painful or maybe they’d get really weak and eventually collapse.
As for returning it — either somebody with you returns it or you leave it in the cart corral like any other and the store employees get it later.
They’re used by people with limited mobility - elderly, obese, bad back, bad knees. Walking is possible, it just hurts. A lot of the people I see using those have a cane or walker in the buggy.
As far as the cart return, it seems like the kids wrangling carts in the lot absolutely love retrieving those buggies. Wouldn’t you?
Some of those people might be able to walk for short periods of time. From the handicap spot, its at most 2 minutes to the cart. Maybe after 5 minutes of walking, they could be anogonizing pain. So they ride around do shopping and just have to suffer through a short walk to/from the cart.
If they completely can’t walk, I guess they have to get someone to bring them the cart. Depending on the disability, you may still be able to drive, but not walk. Could be modified controls for the car or something.
Maybe you can move your legs just fine but standing on them is a problem (it’s hard to push a cart and use a cane or walker)
Maybe they can walk just fine, but can’t push the weight of a full cart, so they ride.
And finally, there just the lazy ones that don’t really need them.
