Gentlemen: I've been in the fire sprinkler business for 37 years, so I have some experience and familiarity with them. Some folks have called me an expert.
We had a similar experience at one of our customer's locations, when the bride hung her wedding dress from the sidewall sprinkler in the Bride's Dressing Room. Yes, there was a sign under it noting not to hang clothing from it, but why pay attention to warning signs? She broke the sprinkler's activating mechanism, and as it should, water came shooting out. The black oily water is characteristic of water sitting in black steel sprinkler pipe, quite normal. The bride's dress in your case wasn't soiled by the sprinkler water, so I doubt she's the culprit in this situation. However, our most-often quoted statistic for sprinklers failing without mechanical injury or fire is one in 16 million per year. There might be 16 million sprinklers in all of Georgia, and look at your own experience- how many stories do you cover where a sprinkler just lets loose? I'm not saying that human intervention took place, I'm just pointing out that the reliable experience our industry has makes it statistically improbable. Matter of fact, Chief David Hilton of Cobb County was instrumental in getting residential sprinklers in place going back to the early 1980's, a pioneer of the industry with vision. It is likely his actions have saved hundreds of lives; you might check how many teeth have been knocked out by sprinkler systems, and compare it to how many lives were saved from fire in apartments and condos in Cobb County in the past 30 years. I'll bet its one tooth, and hundreds of lives saved. If you'd like further information on the likelihood of an accidental discharge, or accurate information on fire sprinklers in general, please feel free to contact either of the two representatives of the Georgia Fire Sprinkler Association (GFSA) or the two from the National Fire Sprinkler Association (NFSA): GFSA Executive Director: Billy Wood Phone: (404) 226-8304 Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> GFSA President: Ray Vance Fire & Life Safety America Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Phone: (770) 717-8812 Wayne Waggoner Tennessee/Southeast Regional Manager Associate Director of Regional Operations (South) PO Box 9 Andersonville, TN 32179 Cell: (865) 755-2956 Fax: (865) 381-0597 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Buddy Dewar Vice President of Regional Operations 200 West College Street Tallahassee, FL 32301 Ph: (850) 222-2070 Fax: (850) 422-1752 Cell: (850) 566-8733 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Fair and balanced reporting is an integral part of good reporting. Currently your viewers only know there was a large BOOM, 5 people went to the hospital, a tooth was knocked out, because the sprinkler system "kicked on". With the likelihood of this happening without help from the wedding party in the room bumping the sprinkler being maybe 1 in 16 million, balanced reporting would, IMHO, require a follow-up with the reliability of our systems duly noted so the public isn't scared of a life-saving technology they should be embracing. Yes, I DO have them in my house, and when I travel, I stay in sprinklered hotels. I'm sure the bride and groom will look back at this and it will all seem funny. I can tell you that reading the reports of folks experiencing their first sprinkler activation is pretty funny to those of us who know the technology and understand what is and isn't possible. Seriously, water shooting from a sprinkler is responsible for a tooth being knocked out? Only as an indirect consequence. Thanks in advance, George L. Church, Jr., CET [cid:[email protected]] President Rowe Sprinkler Systems, Inc. 7993 US Hwy 522 PO Box 407 Middleburg, PA 17842 877-324-ROWE 570-837-7647 570-837-6335 fax [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> www.rowesprinkler.com<http://www.rowesprinkler.com/> [cid:[email protected]] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/private/sprinklerforum/attachments/20120605/0156c25d/attachment.html> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 978 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: <http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/private/sprinklerforum/attachments/20120605/0156c25d/attachment.jpg> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2358 bytes Desc: image002.jpg URL: <http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/private/sprinklerforum/attachments/20120605/0156c25d/attachment-0001.jpg> _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum
