As members of the City of Calgary’s safety response unit commence their investigation into Tuesday morning’s incident where a pedestrian was crushed and pinned by a parkade door, officials confirm there are few regulations garnering the use of safety devices.
“For parkade doors there’s typically no regulation under the building code requiring really anything other than they need to be installed as the manufacturer’s designed,” explained Dennis Terhove, a supervisor with the City of Calgary’s safety response unit. “It’s really up to the owner of the building to decide what it is that they want that door to do, what options it may have to have.”
On Tuesday morning, a woman in her 70s was attempting to walk through the parkade entrance at the Riverside Towers on Point McKay Crescent N.W. when she was struck and pinned by the door. Firefighters freed the injured senior and an EMS crew transported her to the Foothills Medical Centre in critical, life threatening condition with numerous internal and external injuries.
Terhove says the age of the parkade door has not been confirmed and members of the safety response unit are awaiting copies of the installation and design packages from the manufacturer.
“We really want to make sure that that door was operating as designed and if there were any problems with it as it pertains to the building,” said Terhove. “Was it attached to the building properly? Were there any structural issues, perhaps?”
Terhove says the incident that occurred at Riverside Towers is the only serious parkade door mishap of its kind that he’s heard of during his time with the City.
While safety devices are not mandatory, installation experts in Calgary say the vast majority of installers would strongly champion for them.
“Pretty much every guy out here is a reputable dealer which means if they install a door, especially a parkade door, 99 per cent of the time they’re going to throw safeties on,” said Ricky MacDonald of Action Door Services. “It should have some sort of a safety device to stop it from closing on objects, cars (or) pedestrians.”
“If I find out that there’s no photo eye, no safety edge on this door, my first call would be to the management company or whoever runs the building saying this is not the safest way to do things, you should put this on.”
As of Tuesday evening, the unidentified senior remained in hospital in critical condition. Officials have not provided an update on her condition in the day following the ordeal.
With files from CTV’s Bill Macfarlane
