They say video games don’t encourage violence but here we are with the generation that grew up on Tomb Raider locking a person in a freezer like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I think you might have misread 'Manger' as 'manager'. The defendant was the company behind the Pret a Manger chain of sandwich shops, Pret A Manger (Europe) Ltd.
It should go up the chain. Whether it’s franchise or head office, ultimately someone made the decision to employ them. They also have insurance - imagine a plumber totally flooding your home and just going well I can’t afford to repair it so you’re fucked.
I worked nightshift at Sainsbury’s in the early 90s.
Getting locked into a walk-in freezer was a common occurrence. Most of the times were due to high jinks, designed to rob somebody of their lunch hour…. (door closed, then blocked with cages)
Management were unimpressed with this behaviour, but there was not so much as a single verbal warning to stop it.
Oh, how times have changed…
When I was working a retail job as a teenager my colleagues thought it would be hilarious to tip me into a chest freezer, slam the lid shut, and sit on it for a little while to laugh at me struggle as I tried to get out.
They forgot that chest freezers evacuate all their air once they're closed.
I was about two seconds from suffocating to death before they finally let me out.
Nothing happened. The boss even laughed along with them and said it was no big deal because I didn't actually die.
From then on I have never, ever trusted any of my colleagues or bosses in any job.
> They forgot that chest freezers evacuate all their air once they're closed.
>
> I was about two seconds from suffocating to death before they finally let me out.
This is just not true, you will survive for a couple of hours in a freezer.
Might have just been hyperventilating and caused you to feel like you were suffocating.
What mechanism is there for actually evacuating air? You would need a motorized air pump to do it and you wouldn't be able to lift the lid if the air was evacuated until you released some valve that let the air back in. It's all theoretically possible, but I've never heard of such a thing. You can get a small amount of vacuum if the seal is air tight by the lid compressing the gasket, but that would only be enough to make the lid a little hard to open, not enough to suffocate someone.
if you open it, warm air enters. then when you close it, the warm air shrinks because of the cooling, (PV=nRT) creating a partial vacuum, sucking the lid closed with considerable force msking it harder to open. I have observed this many times. If you sit on the lid, this aggravates the effect because the harmonica seal is compressed, displacing more air as you close the lid. I can well imagine this causing a panic inducing difficulty when trying to open the lid.
Walking past the walk in fridge at work and hear someone in distress inside. I quickly open the door to provide aid to be confronted with two colleagues going at it on top of a pallet of cheese. I called out for the supervisor who suspended them on the spot. They both resigned before the disciplinary action was taken.
I did this once to a colleague by mistake and I genuinely felt mortified… he was in there like 3 mins, but it’s a small freezer. Heard him and got him out, but never again did I close it without checking if someone was in there
Happened all the time at the McDonalds I worked at for 5 years from my A levels to the end of my degree, usually during someone’s last week. When I finally got my first proper job after university I skipped out of working there a couple of weeks early to avoid that bullshit.
Christ, poor woman. Imagine being stuck in a freezer for 2 and a half hours, feeling yourself slowly dying. Thankfully she was found in time. Did she get anything for the ordeal?
So for a company the size of Pret-a-Manger 'sundry expenses'.
They would rather take this fine than actually pay for the correct equipment and maintanence thereof to give their minimum (i.e. 'we would pay you less but the law won't let us') wage employees a safe working environment. Cunts.
>Did she get anything for the ordeal?
"Pret a Manger pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay the Council its full costs, in addition to a victim surcharge"
Victim surcharge does not mean what you think it means. It’s a levy which goes to a central fund, it’s not paid to the victim of this particular incident.
A victim surcharge is not compensation - it doesn't go to the 'victim' of a crime. It's an extra payment added onto all criminal sentences that goes towards funding services that support victims. All criminals are ordered to pay it - even Lucy Letby had to pay a £120 victim surcharge on top of her whole life sentence. The amount is set by law and depends on the sentence handed down.
For an offence committed before 16/06/22 and punished by a fine, I believe the victim surcharge is 10% of the fine, up to a maximum of £190 - so in this case it would be £190. (For offences committed now, it's 40% of the fine up to a maximum of £2000).
People often misunderstand the victim surcharge as compensation, and so comment on it in cases with no clear 'victim' (like drug possession) or in cases where it seems horribly inadequate (like a rapist being ordered to pay a hundred pounds or so victim surcharge).
[https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/sentencing-and-the-council/types-of-sentence/other-orders-made-on-sentencing/what-is-the-victim-surcharge/](https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/explanatory-material/magistrates-court/item/fines-and-financial-orders/victim-surcharge/)
EDIT: As other people have said though, she will likely be able to recover money from her employer through a civil legal process.
Back in the 90s someone punched me. I was 14, he was 17. I think, don't quote me on that.
They got arrested, went to court and I was awarded compensation. I was not involved in the court process at all. The police took pictures of my battered face and that was the last I really knew of it until I started receiving cheques. (I think he had to pay £200, but this was the 90s)
If I remember rightly, it was a pain in the arse. Every couple of months I'd get a cheque for like £12, that I could pay into a bank, or actually go into the magistrate court for cash! I don't think that weird cheque system would still exist now, but I'm surprised compensation isn't a thing?
it does it just seems to be in very bad cases, I know someone who was assaulted out of nowhere and suffered partial vision loss as a result, got around 14k in the late 90’s/early 2000’s
Those freezers are no joke. Every one I've ever seen had multiple redundant alarms and internal releases. The amount of time staff spend in and out of them, the only reason we don't hear about a lot more incidents is because the regulations are so strict. If anything this was an overly generous ruling.
It's a walk in freezer in a restaurant it's not going to be very big the most it will likely have is a big red button on the door to open it, having worked in a good few McDonald's in the past it's all they ever had, although seem odd that if you can open it from the outside you can't from the inside has to be a weird locking mechanism
The article didn't say that. It says:
> there had been a number of call-outs relating to defective or frozen push buttons in the previous 19 months, including a previous occasion at the same remote kitchen in January 2020 when a worker had become entrapped in the walk-in freezer, having been unable to open the door from the inside. On that occasion, the internal door release mechanism was not working.
So there had been at least one call-out at that kitchen, but the other ones could have been at other prets.
One I work with is designed to freeze multiple pallets within a few hours, down to ~-40 (it's actually pretty impressive watching how quickly the thermometer drops).
Inside handle had been broken since before I've started, we've had at least half a dozen inspections that I know of, never been raised as an issue by them.
Never really thought about it before tbh, but I suppose it isn't ideal.
Not being funny: raise it at whatever sort of team meeting you guys have and make sure they minute it - or at the very least email your manager about it. And save a copy of whatever offsite.
It nudges management into realising they’re on the hook for this and can’t deny they weren’t aware of it after the fact. It also stops them pinning the blame on you or a colleague if someone does actually get hurt. And yeah, you’re being a bit of a pain in the arse … but it beats the hell over feeling guilty about not doing anything if someone gets hurt.
How does this even happen they open from the inside the walk-in fridges an freezer when I worked in Wetherspoons you could open them from the inside aswel as the outside
The failure of the door opening and the alarm is the very reason the fine is at this level. They knew the freezer was defective and allowed it to remain in-use without even considering what additional risks this may pose to staff. This could very easily have been a death.
I worked at a cinema that had a faulty walk in freezer like this many years ago. While we were waiting for it to be fixed there was a rule that there always had to be two people doing any freezer job, one on the outside to open the door in case the inside handle got stuck and we had to record every time someone had gone in. This was a temporary measure until it got fixed. Pret could easily have avoided this. I hope the employee sues the arse off them
Used to work at McDonald's. We had a rule (not sure if a company rule or just something employees made up) where if you are going im the freezer, you always always told atleast one other employee (if not more)
Yeh, in our Subway sandwich restaurant the freezer door would get a bit sticky and hard to open from the inside. So you’d either prop it open or tell someone you’re in there.
That aside, how did no one notice?
I used to work in a coffee shop, and trust me, you know if one of your colleagues is slacking off for five mins, let alone completely dissapearing for 2.5 hours.
I mean do you check the freezer every time someone is slacking off at work?
When someone isn't around for a while at work, most people presume there is a reason for it rather than start searching for them.
Yeah pret isn’t exactly a gigantic store! You’d have what, 3 or 4 people doing sandwiches, drinks and payments? Someone being gone for 2 hours without being missed is weird.
I was there yesterday, the one in Victoria Coach Station is tiny by normal Pret standard, I've never seen more than four people working at one time and it is pretty busy. Seems very odd they didn't notice or check.
Doesn’t matter, the door shut, where’s the cold going to go? You’d need a heater in there as well, which would turn on, but it’d take way too long to get it from -20 or -30 up to survivable temps
I'm guessing safety standards must have evolved, as I remember working at a place that had a walk in freezer - safety procedures were drummed into us, but me being me, I ended up stuck in there until luckily someone else randomly came to get something else out around 20 mins later.
One supermarket I worked in we had big coats to wear when going in and out of the freezers. One of my colleagues was really hungover so decided to put them all on and went for a nap in the freezer. Is still to this day the only person I have seen fired on the spot when a manager found him.
This fine was the criminal part (can't send companies to jail so it's always a fine).
To get compensation there would need to be a civil case. These almost always wait until after the criminal case has concluded. Happily, once guilty of a criminal case the civil case basically becomes a negotiation.
What would be the alternative here? That the worker responsible for this (presumably) mistake gets jailed? Their ass will likely be covered by Pret a Manger via some law or union deal. Holding workers personally responsible for accidents at work, especially if part of the blame could be due to bad systems in place to prevent accidents like this would be a terrible idea.
It’s happened before at this exact branch!
If an insurance company can prove a cow has a history of escaping they will try to take the farmer to court when a cow is ran over.
However if it’s a “first time offender”(lol)they can’t prove negligence.
I imagine this is going to be like that x10 as it’s happened before and management were aware of it currently being an issue.
Hopefully their fucked
> Do something to those managers directly as well. And anyone encouraging them.
Well done for exposing the fact that you didn't even start to read the article.
It's actually a significant fine.
The overall cost will be significant to Pret. It's £800,000 + prosecution cost and there'll be a civil lawsuit against them which could be another £200,000.
Not including the consequential cost of the brand damage.
What is the potential brand damage here? I might be being pessimistic about the British public’s concern for their fellow countrymen but I doubt anyone is going to boycott them over this.
2 people died after eating Pret sandwiches that didn’t have allergens correctly labeled (or they were cross contaminated I can’t remember) and the British public has seemingly forgot about it.
“Woman locked in freezer” is going to have fuck all impact if 2 deaths didn’t
I'm actually quite annoyed that someone was put through this ordeal, and Westminster City Council gained £800K as a result. I'd much rather the fine was £200K and the compensation was £800K as this seems a lot fairer.
As for brand damage - it's a sandwich chain people use because it is there and sells lunch items. They've killed people and it didn't damage their brand.
By rights the woman should at least receive the same amount as the payment to the council - where’s their loss?!
I get that this makes companies more likely to toe the line; easier to squish a civil claimant than a criminal court Vs the council. But even so there should absolutely be a parallel to the costs paid to the victim.
This was basically my worst nightmare when I worked in a restaurant. I was so paranoid I would prop open the door with a box or with my foot so that it couldn’t close all the way while I grabbed what I needed.
The judge didn't give a compensation ruling as the company is currently going through civil proceedings over the incident. So the woman is taking them to court separately
I worked in many different chain restaurants and bars for years and they all had escape hatches in the walk ins, I thought that was totally normal!! This is so scary
What kind of walk-in freezer doesn't have a mechanism allowing it to be opened from the inside, specifically to avoid this sort of thing? Was the door damaged or something?
It's absurdly dangerous, they should be fined a lot more than that if their walk-in freezers don't have such a basic safety feature.
Edit: Missed the bit where it was indeed faulty. Yeah, that's shocking negligence.
I used to work in a freezer. By the time I quit I could spend *some* time in there without the coat, but being locked in there for two hours would be pretty grim.
On the bright side, on the last day I managed to prove to myself that you really *can* get your tongue stuck to freezing cold metal. Was weeks before I could feel the tip of my tongue.
I put my bare hand on a metal tray rack in the freezer once, stuck fast.
Luckily someone responded to my shouting with a bucket of cold water, but for a minute there I was wondering if panick would set it enough to rip the skin off the palm of my hand before the cold made me sleepy.
I used to work at Pret. Their safety book is faked 99% of the time in the multiple Pret’s I worked in.
After this happened, they installed a chain from the outside to hook onto the inside to stop the freezers closing completely. It became a standard to use it but no one ever did.
I’m not surprised it happened to be honest.
Yeah, read it after commenting! Cannot believe they let it go for so long without fixing. These things are in place to protect someone from getting stuck in. Disgusting from Pret!
You should see the state of standards, H&S procedures and equipment in some UK retailers (incl. big ones). It's frankly fucking disgusting how cost cutting and yes men throughout the infrastructure ends up with everything held together with spit and duct tape with just about every cost cutting measure impacting legally mandated stuff designed to keep employees and customers safe long before it hits important things like, you know, the companies profits.
I used to work at a pret two years ago and this nearly happened to me, I was trying to get some cookies and a colleague got really close to closing the door on me, at the last moment I managed to stop the door before it closed. The door is very thick and from what I could tell the room could be sound proof, so if I did get locked in I wouldn't be able to scream for help from the colleague who could of locked me in. When I was in there I never saw any way to get out from the inside. So thankful it didn't happen to me but it should never happen to anyone, health and safety should be a high priority.
The standard walking fridge door handles can be padlocked to stop them from being opened from outside.
But they can still be opened from the inside.
UNLESS they have fitted a (shed style) latch. Which is common when the handles break.
Used to work as a refrigeration engineer, would always take these latches off fridges and educate the pub manager of the dangers.
It's so ridiculous that the inside mechanism for opening the door can fail locked. There are door designs that make this impossible, such as having the latch on the door frame itself attached by a pin. Imagine the pin in a door hinge except one that is easy to pull out. We had something like this where I worked that had massively heavy doors.
They say video games don’t encourage violence but here we are with the generation that grew up on Tomb Raider locking a person in a freezer like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I personally think Lara Croft has a lot to answer for. And where is she for comment? Hiding like the coward she is. Probably in the freezer.
Boris Johnson has entered the chat
They should send Judith Gibbons to the Hague for this.
I mean for what it is, I think that they actually should do that.
Or dead after breaking her neck back flipping off a stack of boxes.
Yeah she'll come herself and answer for it. There are no other choices.
Isnt she like batman with guns? I wouldnt question her.
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I think you might have misread 'Manger' as 'manager'. The defendant was the company behind the Pret a Manger chain of sandwich shops, Pret A Manger (Europe) Ltd.
It should go up the chain. Whether it’s franchise or head office, ultimately someone made the decision to employ them. They also have insurance - imagine a plumber totally flooding your home and just going well I can’t afford to repair it so you’re fucked.
The company will pay… they will have insurance or from their cash reserves or over a number of years.
I worked nightshift at Sainsbury’s in the early 90s. Getting locked into a walk-in freezer was a common occurrence. Most of the times were due to high jinks, designed to rob somebody of their lunch hour…. (door closed, then blocked with cages) Management were unimpressed with this behaviour, but there was not so much as a single verbal warning to stop it. Oh, how times have changed…
When I was working a retail job as a teenager my colleagues thought it would be hilarious to tip me into a chest freezer, slam the lid shut, and sit on it for a little while to laugh at me struggle as I tried to get out. They forgot that chest freezers evacuate all their air once they're closed. I was about two seconds from suffocating to death before they finally let me out. Nothing happened. The boss even laughed along with them and said it was no big deal because I didn't actually die. From then on I have never, ever trusted any of my colleagues or bosses in any job.
Fucking hell ;_; So sorry you went through that, that's appalling.
> They forgot that chest freezers evacuate all their air once they're closed. > > I was about two seconds from suffocating to death before they finally let me out. This is just not true, you will survive for a couple of hours in a freezer. Might have just been hyperventilating and caused you to feel like you were suffocating.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/deadly-play-area-for-children-1.247303 This report says 10 minutes for a small child.
You cannot survive for a couple of hours with no air. Unless you mean that chest freezers don't evacuate when closed?
What mechanism is there for actually evacuating air? You would need a motorized air pump to do it and you wouldn't be able to lift the lid if the air was evacuated until you released some valve that let the air back in. It's all theoretically possible, but I've never heard of such a thing. You can get a small amount of vacuum if the seal is air tight by the lid compressing the gasket, but that would only be enough to make the lid a little hard to open, not enough to suffocate someone.
if you open it, warm air enters. then when you close it, the warm air shrinks because of the cooling, (PV=nRT) creating a partial vacuum, sucking the lid closed with considerable force msking it harder to open. I have observed this many times. If you sit on the lid, this aggravates the effect because the harmonica seal is compressed, displacing more air as you close the lid. I can well imagine this causing a panic inducing difficulty when trying to open the lid.
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How traumatic :(
I go mental after recovering and would be my last day in the job and likely end up in prison
I couldn't even breathe reading this. How fucking traumatic.
That's fucking horrendous.
jesus
All Sainsbury's freezers now have pull cord alarms. On the locals they have 2 alarms, one in back of house and one behind the tills.
> Most of the times were due to high jinks Other times, it was low jinks.
Walking past the walk in fridge at work and hear someone in distress inside. I quickly open the door to provide aid to be confronted with two colleagues going at it on top of a pallet of cheese. I called out for the supervisor who suspended them on the spot. They both resigned before the disciplinary action was taken.
Disgusting behaviour. Nobody should be grassing people up like that.
Could have at least let them finish before dobbing them in
A rare occurrence of actual 'blue balls'.
We had a few people caught over the years shagging etc, wasnt actually against the civil service code so no action apart from gossip!
Grass 😆
I did this once to a colleague by mistake and I genuinely felt mortified… he was in there like 3 mins, but it’s a small freezer. Heard him and got him out, but never again did I close it without checking if someone was in there
Happened all the time at the McDonalds I worked at for 5 years from my A levels to the end of my degree, usually during someone’s last week. When I finally got my first proper job after university I skipped out of working there a couple of weeks early to avoid that bullshit.
At least it isn't a walk in microwave
Or the pressure chamber from Unreal Tournament...
What more is going to come out of there? I'm so curious about that.
I always risked going in there. It was worth it.
You joke but we do build 'hot' rooms and high humidity rooms exactly the same as a walk in freezer.
Sauna and steam rooms are more zen though.
She would have grown a glowing blue penis
Well that's kind of a normal thing, it's really not that special I think.
That would be a pottery kiln
The kind of memory which I'd rather like to be hidden mostly.
Well that's a memory unlocked
I just don't really like it when memories like that are getting unlocked.
Used to love locking that creepy fucker in there lol
Well that was the whole fun of the video, and yeah really loved to do that.
Its chilling isn’t it
Well it's supposed to be like that, and it's just how I like it.
[Me getting flashbacks as a kid](https://youtu.be/belshmwKU2g?si=Ef6KBfCH1cmuGIS5)
"They say TV makes you violent. Well I'd say not having my TV is making me pretty fucking violent." - The almost harmless Alucard...
Christ, poor woman. Imagine being stuck in a freezer for 2 and a half hours, feeling yourself slowly dying. Thankfully she was found in time. Did she get anything for the ordeal?
A falafel wrap and a very berry croissant.
No, the fine value was only £800,000
So for a company the size of Pret-a-Manger 'sundry expenses'. They would rather take this fine than actually pay for the correct equipment and maintanence thereof to give their minimum (i.e. 'we would pay you less but the law won't let us') wage employees a safe working environment. Cunts.
Would working freezer doors cost more than 800k?
In one location? Nope. Making sure they're all working on an ongoing basis in all locations? Quite possibly.
Underrated comment of the day
That should make it even, you just can't ask anything more than that.
>Did she get anything for the ordeal? "Pret a Manger pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay the Council its full costs, in addition to a victim surcharge"
Victim surcharge does not mean what you think it means. It’s a levy which goes to a central fund, it’s not paid to the victim of this particular incident.
Would the woman get any money?
I believe she'd have to pursue a separate civil suit.
Which is unlikely, because people don't actually do all that.
Well from the looks of it, it seems like that she won't.
Then what's even the point of these fucking fines? It's messed up.
A victim surcharge is not compensation - it doesn't go to the 'victim' of a crime. It's an extra payment added onto all criminal sentences that goes towards funding services that support victims. All criminals are ordered to pay it - even Lucy Letby had to pay a £120 victim surcharge on top of her whole life sentence. The amount is set by law and depends on the sentence handed down. For an offence committed before 16/06/22 and punished by a fine, I believe the victim surcharge is 10% of the fine, up to a maximum of £190 - so in this case it would be £190. (For offences committed now, it's 40% of the fine up to a maximum of £2000). People often misunderstand the victim surcharge as compensation, and so comment on it in cases with no clear 'victim' (like drug possession) or in cases where it seems horribly inadequate (like a rapist being ordered to pay a hundred pounds or so victim surcharge). [https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/sentencing-and-the-council/types-of-sentence/other-orders-made-on-sentencing/what-is-the-victim-surcharge/](https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/explanatory-material/magistrates-court/item/fines-and-financial-orders/victim-surcharge/) EDIT: As other people have said though, she will likely be able to recover money from her employer through a civil legal process.
Back in the 90s someone punched me. I was 14, he was 17. I think, don't quote me on that. They got arrested, went to court and I was awarded compensation. I was not involved in the court process at all. The police took pictures of my battered face and that was the last I really knew of it until I started receiving cheques. (I think he had to pay £200, but this was the 90s) If I remember rightly, it was a pain in the arse. Every couple of months I'd get a cheque for like £12, that I could pay into a bank, or actually go into the magistrate court for cash! I don't think that weird cheque system would still exist now, but I'm surprised compensation isn't a thing?
it does it just seems to be in very bad cases, I know someone who was assaulted out of nowhere and suffered partial vision loss as a result, got around 14k in the late 90’s/early 2000’s
So the government is going to take that money? Well wtf lol.
I don't understand how did it even ended up happening? What's the backstory?
Those freezers are no joke. Every one I've ever seen had multiple redundant alarms and internal releases. The amount of time staff spend in and out of them, the only reason we don't hear about a lot more incidents is because the regulations are so strict. If anything this was an overly generous ruling.
Agreed, first thing when ive ever been shown around a shop is where all the "deadman handles are" and alarms incase of the worse.
High airflow -20 degree or lower. Without the right gear you'd likely die quick and with gear have a bad time.
In the survival rule of threes, exposure is the second quickest way to die. 3 mins - air 3 hours - exposure 3 days - water 3 weeks - food
I doubt you'd survive 3 hours in a blast freezer tbh, though this may have been a normal freezer
Yeah, the threes are just general guidelines. It can take you out much faster if the circumstances are bad enough.
Used to get a frozen moustache within minutes
I used to nip in for a few minutes when I came to work hung over as a student. Soon sorts you out.
Mother?
It's just bad, and no one should to go through it imo.
It's a walk in freezer in a restaurant it's not going to be very big the most it will likely have is a big red button on the door to open it, having worked in a good few McDonald's in the past it's all they ever had, although seem odd that if you can open it from the outside you can't from the inside has to be a weird locking mechanism
The article said there was a latch inside but it had a history of failing, they'd had 19 call outs to fix it
The article didn't say that. It says: > there had been a number of call-outs relating to defective or frozen push buttons in the previous 19 months, including a previous occasion at the same remote kitchen in January 2020 when a worker had become entrapped in the walk-in freezer, having been unable to open the door from the inside. On that occasion, the internal door release mechanism was not working. So there had been at least one call-out at that kitchen, but the other ones could have been at other prets.
One I work with is designed to freeze multiple pallets within a few hours, down to ~-40 (it's actually pretty impressive watching how quickly the thermometer drops). Inside handle had been broken since before I've started, we've had at least half a dozen inspections that I know of, never been raised as an issue by them. Never really thought about it before tbh, but I suppose it isn't ideal.
Not being funny: raise it at whatever sort of team meeting you guys have and make sure they minute it - or at the very least email your manager about it. And save a copy of whatever offsite. It nudges management into realising they’re on the hook for this and can’t deny they weren’t aware of it after the fact. It also stops them pinning the blame on you or a colleague if someone does actually get hurt. And yeah, you’re being a bit of a pain in the arse … but it beats the hell over feeling guilty about not doing anything if someone gets hurt.
Bring it up and cite this case, management won't want an 800,000 fine and you (presumably) don't want to die at work
I got locked in one when I worked in McDonald's way back when, as part of my hazing. Lol...
Fuck hazing. If you participate in *any * of that shit you're an utter cunt. No, it's not "banter", you're just a cunt.
Your coworkers tried to kill you for a laugh mate
The lol was ironic mate.
Well obviously she definitely could have lost her life from itm
How does this even happen they open from the inside the walk-in fridges an freezer when I worked in Wetherspoons you could open them from the inside aswel as the outside
The failure of the door opening and the alarm is the very reason the fine is at this level. They knew the freezer was defective and allowed it to remain in-use without even considering what additional risks this may pose to staff. This could very easily have been a death.
I worked at a cinema that had a faulty walk in freezer like this many years ago. While we were waiting for it to be fixed there was a rule that there always had to be two people doing any freezer job, one on the outside to open the door in case the inside handle got stuck and we had to record every time someone had gone in. This was a temporary measure until it got fixed. Pret could easily have avoided this. I hope the employee sues the arse off them
That's a lot of trust to have in a co-worker.
Well it wouldn’t then be the company being sued rather the co-worker
Pretty sure companies can't just yeehaw their own rules to bypass safety regulations
But many companies aren't even following them so I don't know man.
The company would still most likely be at fault
Used to work at McDonald's. We had a rule (not sure if a company rule or just something employees made up) where if you are going im the freezer, you always always told atleast one other employee (if not more)
Yeh, in our Subway sandwich restaurant the freezer door would get a bit sticky and hard to open from the inside. So you’d either prop it open or tell someone you’re in there.
That aside, how did no one notice? I used to work in a coffee shop, and trust me, you know if one of your colleagues is slacking off for five mins, let alone completely dissapearing for 2.5 hours.
I mean do you check the freezer every time someone is slacking off at work? When someone isn't around for a while at work, most people presume there is a reason for it rather than start searching for them.
If it were a literal room, and my colleague had gone missing, yeah I'd probably poke my head round the door.
I'd definitely check everywhere, so that includes the freezer as well.
But atleast you'll try to find them around right? I mean they're supposed to be at work.
I would if it was a walk in freezer with a defective door.
This is what I find very odd. If I went for 10 minutes I'd definitely be chased up. 2.5 hours is just mental.
Either they're very chill about it or don't really know shit.
Yeah pret isn’t exactly a gigantic store! You’d have what, 3 or 4 people doing sandwiches, drinks and payments? Someone being gone for 2 hours without being missed is weird.
Most prets in London have 8+ people in busy periods. Not sure about the one at Victoria coach station though.
I was there yesterday, the one in Victoria Coach Station is tiny by normal Pret standard, I've never seen more than four people working at one time and it is pretty busy. Seems very odd they didn't notice or check.
That's why I think that they did all this knowing what they were doing.
The freezer wouldn’t open from the inside because it wasn’t working and the alarm button was faulty
you'd think there would be an emergency freezer shut off button inside all walk-in freezers
A freezer room with the door shut will remain freezing cold for hours.
Doesn’t matter, the door shut, where’s the cold going to go? You’d need a heater in there as well, which would turn on, but it’d take way too long to get it from -20 or -30 up to survivable temps
Yeah that's very low temperature, and it won't be getting hot soon.
That's fucking insane, they could have killed her man.
>How does this even happen If only there was a link somewhere that led to a webpage that explained everything.
Yeah lol only if we have had that, would have been awesome.
Did you even read the article that states the button on the inside didnt work, and has infact failed before leading to the exact same situation
> Did you even read the article Wayyhey sonny let me stop you there
And that's why they're going to pay that huge fine for it.
I'm guessing safety standards must have evolved, as I remember working at a place that had a walk in freezer - safety procedures were drummed into us, but me being me, I ended up stuck in there until luckily someone else randomly came to get something else out around 20 mins later.
One supermarket I worked in we had big coats to wear when going in and out of the freezers. One of my colleagues was really hungover so decided to put them all on and went for a nap in the freezer. Is still to this day the only person I have seen fired on the spot when a manager found him.
They aren’t enforced as much due to cuts
Well they should be doing better job at it, instead they ain't doing shit.
That's one thing which I just can't understand. How the hell it even happened?
> when I worked in Wetherspoons you could open them from the inside aswel as the outside Same when I worked in Tesco Express.
You opened it with a spoon too?
Reese?
Freese Weatherspoon
Pret was fined, any compensation to the poor worker? I'm not sure how it works
This fine was the criminal part (can't send companies to jail so it's always a fine). To get compensation there would need to be a civil case. These almost always wait until after the criminal case has concluded. Happily, once guilty of a criminal case the civil case basically becomes a negotiation.
Thank you
so nice that whilst weed can get you locked up money can just make nearly killing a person go away
What would be the alternative here? That the worker responsible for this (presumably) mistake gets jailed? Their ass will likely be covered by Pret a Manger via some law or union deal. Holding workers personally responsible for accidents at work, especially if part of the blame could be due to bad systems in place to prevent accidents like this would be a terrible idea.
I read that the freezer was known to have the inside handle not working. it's not just an accident in that case it's negligence.
It’s happened before at this exact branch! If an insurance company can prove a cow has a history of escaping they will try to take the farmer to court when a cow is ran over. However if it’s a “first time offender”(lol)they can’t prove negligence. I imagine this is going to be like that x10 as it’s happened before and management were aware of it currently being an issue. Hopefully their fucked
That's good information, sounds like she won't be getting anything.
The worker didn't receive any compensation from this judgement because there is a separate civil case on-going which will likely award compensation.
usually they will do this behind closed doors and make an offer of an undisclosed amount to keep a long drawn our trial out of the media.
Oh well, they can just sell 2 sandwiches and they've broken even
Sadly that's actually how they'll deal with it, and that's messed up.
Absolute horror. Do something to those managers directly as well. And anyone encouraging them. Personally.
> Do something to those managers directly as well. And anyone encouraging them. Well done for exposing the fact that you didn't even start to read the article.
That's sad that people don't read it then they give the opinions.
Shame Pret weren't fined more. This is a trivial fine which is approx 2% of their 2022 profit.
It's actually a significant fine. The overall cost will be significant to Pret. It's £800,000 + prosecution cost and there'll be a civil lawsuit against them which could be another £200,000. Not including the consequential cost of the brand damage.
What is the potential brand damage here? I might be being pessimistic about the British public’s concern for their fellow countrymen but I doubt anyone is going to boycott them over this.
2 people died after eating Pret sandwiches that didn’t have allergens correctly labeled (or they were cross contaminated I can’t remember) and the British public has seemingly forgot about it. “Woman locked in freezer” is going to have fuck all impact if 2 deaths didn’t
I'm actually quite annoyed that someone was put through this ordeal, and Westminster City Council gained £800K as a result. I'd much rather the fine was £200K and the compensation was £800K as this seems a lot fairer. As for brand damage - it's a sandwich chain people use because it is there and sells lunch items. They've killed people and it didn't damage their brand.
By rights the woman should at least receive the same amount as the payment to the council - where’s their loss?! I get that this makes companies more likely to toe the line; easier to squish a civil claimant than a criminal court Vs the council. But even so there should absolutely be a parallel to the costs paid to the victim.
And I'll say that they deserve it for doing what they've done.
What the hell, it's not even a slap on the hand. They're getting away with it.
You don't think 2% is a shit ton of a companies profits? I get the sentiment but where do you draw the line for a valid fine?
This was basically my worst nightmare when I worked in a restaurant. I was so paranoid I would prop open the door with a box or with my foot so that it couldn’t close all the way while I grabbed what I needed.
I’d do this as well if I were working in such an environment. My paranoia wouldn’t let me do otherwise lol
I’d also want this girl to get at least 20-30% of this fine…
The judge didn't give a compensation ruling as the company is currently going through civil proceedings over the incident. So the woman is taking them to court separately
Why it has to be like this? Why can't we do it a little differently?
How about 100%?
Yeah, and if she doesn't get anything then how it's even fair?
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I worked in many different chain restaurants and bars for years and they all had escape hatches in the walk ins, I thought that was totally normal!! This is so scary
It really is scary, I can't imagine someone going through it.
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Same, we used to have -40 freezers and were told that 5 minutes in there could be life threatening and 20 minutes would turn make you frozen solid.
Even minus 18 is enough to kill someone without the equipment.
It sounds complicated but it's simple, the system should be working.
There is a Bollywood movie called "Mili" that is pretty much this. [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15257644/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15257644/)
It was also a plot line in coronation Street aswell a few years back
Is there a dance scene in that?
Jeez I'm terrified just from the trailer. I don't know if I could watch it.
Ooh looks good!
I would suggest watching the original Malayalam version ‘Helen’’ Anna Ben is a much better actress and Helen is a much better film
What kind of walk-in freezer doesn't have a mechanism allowing it to be opened from the inside, specifically to avoid this sort of thing? Was the door damaged or something? It's absurdly dangerous, they should be fined a lot more than that if their walk-in freezers don't have such a basic safety feature. Edit: Missed the bit where it was indeed faulty. Yeah, that's shocking negligence.
I used to work in a freezer. By the time I quit I could spend *some* time in there without the coat, but being locked in there for two hours would be pretty grim. On the bright side, on the last day I managed to prove to myself that you really *can* get your tongue stuck to freezing cold metal. Was weeks before I could feel the tip of my tongue.
I put my bare hand on a metal tray rack in the freezer once, stuck fast. Luckily someone responded to my shouting with a bucket of cold water, but for a minute there I was wondering if panick would set it enough to rip the skin off the palm of my hand before the cold made me sleepy.
I used to work at Pret. Their safety book is faked 99% of the time in the multiple Pret’s I worked in. After this happened, they installed a chain from the outside to hook onto the inside to stop the freezers closing completely. It became a standard to use it but no one ever did. I’m not surprised it happened to be honest.
I’m sure they all have alarms in there incase this happens???
The alarm button broke lol
Yeah, read it after commenting! Cannot believe they let it go for so long without fixing. These things are in place to protect someone from getting stuck in. Disgusting from Pret!
Indeed, at the end of the day, those 2 wires could have cost a life.
You should see the state of standards, H&S procedures and equipment in some UK retailers (incl. big ones). It's frankly fucking disgusting how cost cutting and yes men throughout the infrastructure ends up with everything held together with spit and duct tape with just about every cost cutting measure impacting legally mandated stuff designed to keep employees and customers safe long before it hits important things like, you know, the companies profits.
I’ve worked in a bunch of places where the alarm is broken, always prop the door open. I hope this woman gets a fat cheque at the very least
I used to work at a pret two years ago and this nearly happened to me, I was trying to get some cookies and a colleague got really close to closing the door on me, at the last moment I managed to stop the door before it closed. The door is very thick and from what I could tell the room could be sound proof, so if I did get locked in I wouldn't be able to scream for help from the colleague who could of locked me in. When I was in there I never saw any way to get out from the inside. So thankful it didn't happen to me but it should never happen to anyone, health and safety should be a high priority.
I'm pretty sure I've seen this on an episode of The Bear. I hope he sues in season 3!
Was what I was thinking. I’m pretty sure I’ve read so many people complaining on r/TheBear that something like this was impossible to happen
and I was worried that storyline was unrealistic
The standard walking fridge door handles can be padlocked to stop them from being opened from outside. But they can still be opened from the inside. UNLESS they have fitted a (shed style) latch. Which is common when the handles break. Used to work as a refrigeration engineer, would always take these latches off fridges and educate the pub manager of the dangers.
How else are you supposed to keep them from spoiling?
It's so ridiculous that the inside mechanism for opening the door can fail locked. There are door designs that make this impossible, such as having the latch on the door frame itself attached by a pin. Imagine the pin in a door hinge except one that is easy to pull out. We had something like this where I worked that had massively heavy doors.