The Independent reported on what Ms Morison called the ‘worst experience I have ever had as a wheelchair user’ on 14 November, when she was staying at the hotel with her mother and a fire alarm sounded at 9pm. Both women got to the fourth floor refuge point and pressed the call button, but no staff came, and ‘after several other hotel guests asked if we needed help, one of them told a member of staff we were stuck’.
That staff member informed them that ‘they didn’t know’ where an evacuation chair was, and that the alarm was ‘probably just someone smoking in their room’, with Ms Morison adding that after most other guests had been evacuated, a fire steward appeared and said ‘are you waiting for someone? I don’t know where the evacuation chair is’. An ‘equally horrified’ hotel guest went to get help, and 50 minutes after the alarm another fire steward arrived.
However, this steward asked why she hadn’t used the lift to evacuate, with Ms Morison responding that ‘this isn’t allowed during a fire’, before the evacuation chair arrived ‘only for staff to reveal they had no idea how to use it’. She stated that they ‘experimented using it on each other and couldn’t figure it out. All in all I was left waiting in the stairwell for an hour. I don’t feel like an equal or valuable customer in Premier Inn’s eyes’.
Ms Morison added that she would feel ‘unsafe’ staying at another Premier Inn, commenting: ‘The possibility that a real fire could break out and I’d be stuck in the same scenario is very scary. A huge fire broke out at a Premier Inn in Bristol recently, which makes it feel all the more worrying. I would hope that following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, all staff working in large buildings would be even more aware of fire safety protocol.
‘I think the general attitude of society is that there aren’t many disabled people so it doesn’t matter – the trouble is there are many disabled people who just aren’t seen as they are scared to go out due to incidents like this.’
She also pointed out that neither the hotel’s duty manager nor any other staff members apologised ‘during or after’ the incident, and added that the duty manager ‘said I should be evacuated but she wasn’t sure how, then left. Following that, we saw no staff and nothing was said when we checked out’.
She called on the chain to retrain staff ‘as a matter of urgency’ on safe evacuation and equality and accessibility laws. A Premier Inn spokesperson responded: ‘We apologise unreservedly for the issues encountered by Emily during her stay and have reached out to her directly to discuss the matter further.
‘We have stringent fire evacuation procedures, including those for disabled and restricted mobility guests, and a full investigation has already been launched to establish exactly what occurred. Whilst our initial investigation suggests this wholly unacceptable incident is an isolated one, we are absolutely committed to taking on board any lessons learned, including the re-training of our entire team in respect of the use of evacuation chairs.’