“The ‘advice’ was to stay put and someone would come to get me. It swiftly became apparent that no one was coming…”
That’s a quote from Dr Hannah Barham-Brown, who last week found herself stuck in a Premier Inn during a fire alarm. Stay put advice and fires reminds me of Grenfell. 72 people died in the Grenfell Tower fire – a disproportionate number of them Disabled people and children.
Premier Inn had already set the scene for Hannah earlier in the day when it had made her navigate inappropriate back entrances, which were locked shut, to enter the hotel in her wheelchair. It’s never a good omen when you’re forced to summon a staff member to go anywhere in a public place, and when entrances are locked, trapping you in or out. But in a fire alarm, the stakes take an altogether higher turn.
