Sad New Details Revealed About The Death Of 5-Year-Old Boy Who Was Crushed At A Rotating Restaurant
Charlie Holt's parents are suing the restaurant.
Charlie Holt, age 5, died on April 14th after his head got stuck between the table and the wall at Sun Dial, a rotating restaurant in Atlanta. His parents recently filed a lawsuit against the company for negligence.
The Holt family was visiting from North Carolina when they decided to eat at the well-known Sun Dial restaurant on top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta. However, a fun vacation quickly turned grim when Charlie Holt, 5, got his head caught between the table and wall, said Officer Stephanie Brown, a spokesperson for the Atlanta police.
According to Brown, the hotel staff and security jumped into action. They quickly flipped the automatic shut off to stop the restaurant from rotating but it was too late.
“By the time someone could manually stop the rotation, it was too late,” said the Holt family’s attorney, Joe Fried. “Charlie’s head had been pulled into the narrow pinch point and he suffered catastrophic head trauma — right in front of his parents.”
The injuries the poor boy sustained at the restaurant were too severe and he died an hour later at Grady Memorial Hospital.
"There was a tragic accident at the hotel involving a young boy,” said a statement by the Westin Peachtree Plaza Manager, George Reed. “Words cannot express the depths of our sorrow. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”
Police say Charlie wandered away from his parents just before the incident occurred, but Fried says otherwise.
“The family was leaving the restaurant together after paying their bill,” Fried told the ALC in an email Thursday. “They were walking to the exit, following the same path that the hostess used to walk them to their table and that they used to walk to and from the restroom earlier. Charlie was only a few steps ahead.”
The path was blocked and as the floor rotated, a booth caught the boy between it and the wall, continued Fried. The boy’s parents, Rebecca and Michael Holt, tried to break him fee but their attempts proved no avail and his skull was crushed.
It took hotel security staff and firefighters reportedly 30 minutes to free Charlie.
The family of Charlie Holt filed a lawsuit against the Sun Dial Wednesday, alleging the restaurant had no ways of preventing a “longstanding safety hazard” that caused the boy’s injuries, said an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It also claims the restaurant had no guards to keep people safe and no automatic safety cut-off or emergency stop button to quickly stop the restaurant’s rotation.
“The family is seeking unspecified punitive damages and a trial,” said the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Marriot International, Inc., which owns the Westin Peach Tree Plaza and Sun Dial restaurant, had no comment on the matter, according to the AJC.
This isn't the first time there has been a death at the Sun Dial restaurant, though. In 2016, a kitchen worker got locked in a walk-in freezer and died. Long-time employee of the Sun Peachtree Plaza Carolyn Robinson, 61, died on March 22 after getting locked in the freezer.
Another young boy, Stephen Akinlabi died when he fell into the hotel’s pool last year in April.