A peaceful employee appreciation event in Bedford Park has turned into a harrowing experience on Thursday morning following an unexpected incident.
What began as a typical event in a parking lot left a traumatic experience in the lives of at least a couple dozen people when the massive tent of the company function collapsed.
Apparently, there was an employee appreciation event taking place at the parking lot of Design Collective by Cintas at the 5600 block of 73rd Street Bedford Park in the United States, Chicago, and the tent that housed the attendees collapsed all of a sudden at 10:45 a.m., leaving twenty-six injured and five of the victims severely hurt.
Learn more about the Bedford Park incident below.
What Happened at the Bedford Park Event in Chicago?
The tent housing the attendees of the employee appreciation event at the parking lot of Design Collective by Cintas in Bedford Park Street collapsed at 10:45 a.m., and help was sent quickly to transport the victims to the nearest hospital.
While it is unknown how many people were present under the tent before it collapsed, 26 people are reportedly injured, and five victims are in serious condition. Cintas company, notorious for various clothing-related businesses, expressed their gratitude for the help of Police and medical departments. They stated,
“We are grateful to the first responders who arrived within minutes of the incident and provided assistance. The health and safety of our employee-partners is our number one priority. We are cooperating with local officials to determine the cause of the incident. Cintas will continue to monitor the situation and do everything we can to assist our employee-partners during this time.”
As of now, the Police have yet to come to a conclusion on how the incident took place, and the media outlets are still reaching out to learn about the victims’ conditions.
Why Did the Tent Collapse During the Employee Event?
While no one knows the exact reason, Eddie Zawila, who owns the EZ Tent Rentals and supposedly delivered the tent for the event, speculated on why it collapsed. Here’s his take on the incident.
“That should have never happened. I don’t know what happened, but it doesn’t speak to our industry. You’re talking about thousands of pounds. Today’s weather was beautiful. I don’t know what the wind gust was, but it was non-existent.”
“The weight that holds the tent wasn’t properly distributed, whether they had enough weight, it wasn’t in the right places, or they clearly didn’t have enough weights to begin with.”
While he clearly speculates that the tent wasn’t properly erected, from the videos shared by major news outlets, it looks like a few frame tents are tied together but weren’t properly stacked together to prevent wind from snapping the weak points.
Evidently, what Zawila said also matched with the workers who were present at the incident but were unaffected. They seemed to have noticed that no weights were anchored to the tent, and since the weather wasn’t particularly windy, they didn’t expect such an incident to happen.
Furthermore, the trail of the damage can be seen all the way back to the last row of chairs, meaning that even though not everyone was inflicted by injuries, they at least met with the remnant force of the collapsed tent.
In any case, it was fortunate there were no losses in the incident, and we can only hope the five victims who were severely injured will recover soon without any fatal consequences.
So, what is your take on the Bedford Park incident? Do you think the tent collapsed due to the carelessness of the workers who erected it? Or was it an unavoidable scenario? Let us know your stance in the comment section below.
Source: CBS News Chicago
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