Hyatt Recency Kansas City Walkway Disaster
On July 17, 1981 two vertically contiguous walkways collapsed onto a tea dance being held in the hotel’s lobby. The falling walkways killed 114 and injured 216. At the time, it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history, not surpassed until the collapse of the south tower of the World Trade Center in 2001.
The rescue operation lasted 14 hours and was performed by many emergency personnel, including crews from 34 fire trucks and EMS units and doctors from five local hospitals. Trapped survivors were buried beneath more than 60 tons of steel, concrete and glass, which neither the Hyatt’s forklifts nor the fire department’s most powerful jacks could budge.
Dr. Joseph Waeckerle, former chief of Kansas City’s emergency medical system, directed the rescue effort establishing a makeshift morgue in a ground floor exhibition area, using the hotel’s driveway and front lawn as a triage area and helping to organize the wounded by greatest need for medical care. Those people who could walk were instructed to leave the hotel to simplify the rescue effort; those mortally injured were told they were going to die and given morphine. Often, rescuers had to dismember bodies in order to reach survivors among the wreckage. One victim’s right leg was trapped under an I-beam and had to be amputated by a surgeon, a task which was completed with a chainsaw
Several rescuers suffered considerable stress due to their experience, and later relied upon each other in an informal support group. Jackhammer operator “Country” Bill Allman took his own life due to the stress.
And… It was 100% avoidable. Had it been built as drawn, this wouldn’t have happened.
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