Rochelle was the first team to arrive in the gym last Saturday morning for the Sectional wrestling meet. As we were sitting in the gym, I saw a man taping up signs on two of the double exit doors in the gym that said “Do Not Exit”. As the man was taping up the signs, another man yelled over to him, “Don’t worry about it, I’m going to tie those doors shut, too.” I looked across the gym at the man who had just yelled and saw him working on tying two of the double doors shut in the gym. I guess they wanted to control who came into the gym in order to route them all by the admissions table located at one of the doors that they were going to use. They planned on tying four of the five double exit doors shut. I immediately informed them that the doors were designated fire exits from the gym and they were about to seriously violate fire code and endanger the lives of the people in the gym, including mine. The man taping signs told me that the other man was an administrator at the school and he could do what he wanted. In response, I told them that if they persisted in tying the fire doors shut, I would make a 911 call and report it. They weren’t too happy with me. But they conceded and left two of the four doors untied and untied a third door a while later. I don’t know what the administrator was thinking. Was he not aware of a certain recent Delaware nightclub incident?
Later that night I sent an email to DeKalb High School and received a response on Sunday morning.
My email:
I am a building official for the City of Rochelle and was in attendance at the Sectional wrestling meet at DeKalb High School on Saturday, March 4, 2006. Prior to the start of the meet and during the wrestler’s weigh-in time, I observed a school administrator tying double fire exit doors shut with rope. From what I understand, the plan was to tie shut four of the five fire exits in the gym to control pedistrian traffic into and out of the gym. Tying fire exit doors shut is a serious fire code violation and endangers the lives of people in the gymnasium. I brought the violation situation to the attention of the staff involved in tying the doors and was happy to see that they decided to leave at least two of the four doors free.
Please consider the seriousness of the administrator’s actions. There was an recent incident at a Delaware nightclub that involved locked exit doors and many people lost their lives. I would encourage you to consider never disabling fire exit doors for future gymnasium events. The loss of even one life would be far more tragic than gaining the extra amount of admission fees.
The response from the principal:
Mr. Edwards–we appreciate your observations and input very much. Thank you for the e-mail–our intent is to never endanger anyone’s life or take on more liability than necessary. We will address this situation for future events. Thanks again!
Lindsey Hall, Principal, DHS
