Friday, August 14, 2009

A tragic death - and a lesson to be learned


I was saddened to read of the death of a woman in a Canadian parking garage.

Rehana Sheeraz Allidina, 29, died after getting pinned between her Acura SUV and a concrete guard post at the exit station on Wednesday evening.

It appears Allidina was using a swipe card to leave the parkade in the 400 block of Ninth Avenue S.W. when she dropped something, said Calgary police Sgt. Graeme Ramsay.

"She opened the door and leaned out to pick it up, is my understanding, and the car was rolling, and she got pinned between it," he said on Thursday.

Her other foot likely came off the brake and the SUV shot forward. The SUV's door hit a guard post and closed on her torso, crushing her against the vehicle.


There's more at the link, including video clips showing how it happened.

The reason I'm posting this story is that I've been in similar situations myself. I've dropped parking garage cards, or keys, or my wallet, or something else, out of my car window when stopped in narrow openings. I've always blithely opened my door and reached for the fallen item. This incident highlights the dangers I'd previously ignored . . . and which might have caught up with me, too.

Please be careful out there, folks - and say a prayer for the soul of the unfortunate Ms. Allidina, if you're so inclined, and for her grieving family.

Peter

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They make parking brakes for that.

If it's in good shape (and damnit, it should be) it should hold the car in drive just fine.

Anonymous said...

She couldn't have put it in park before she moved from a position where she could hold the foot brake? Don't get me wrong, I'm sympathetic towards her family and everyone that was at the scene, but this didn't need to happen in the first place.

Jim