# ToNiePokój escape room fire

A fire in the ToNiePokój escape room in Koszalin, Poland, on 4 January 2019, killed five teenage customers and injured an adult employee. An investigation found numerous deficiencies in safety standards and five people associated with running the escape room were found criminally responsible for the girls' deaths. The fire led to stricter safety regulations for escape rooms in Poland.

## Fire

At approximately 5:15 p.m. a fire broke out in one of the two rooms of the escape room at 88 Piłsudskiego street. Five 15-year-old girls – Amelia Wieczorek, Małgorzata Tymieniecka, Julia Pawlak, Karolina Barabas, and Wiktoria Pietras – died of carbon monoxide poisoning. They were all students of class III d of Junior High School No. 9 (currently Primary School No. 18) in Koszalin and were celebrating Julia's birthday. They were all close friends. The victims were not directly burnt by the fire and the bodies were not in the path of the fire. It was said to be caused by leaking gas cylinders that were used to heat the building, though this has been disputed by the victims' parents, who claimed that it was caused by a live fire. According to the victims' parents, an experiment with a gas cylinder returned results that were completely different than what was present at the site of the fire. The building's windows had been covered with "makeshift walls" and the room in which the victims died in was "no bigger than a closet", being approximately 7 m$^2$ (75 sq ft) in size. The door of the room had no handle, since the victims were supposed to find the handle as part of the game. The victims had no escape route. There was no panic button to open the door in case of an emergency. The employee on duty, Radosław D., was not present when the fire started. He was in a nearby store to change money and a wall of fire prevented him from opening the room when he returned. According to the prosecutor's office, Radosław D. did not attempt to extinguish the fire or use fire extinguishers. If he was present, he could have told the victims that there was a hidden passage behind a fake fireplace to the next room, which was fire-free.
The girls called the fire department and told the dispatcher that they were trapped inside the room, that there was a large amount of smoke, and they requested assistance. At about 5:14:30 P.M., Wiktoria called her father and said 'Dad, fire!' (Polish: Tata, pożar!), which her father stated were the last words she said to him. Her father testified in court that he initially thought that the call was a hint to solve the puzzle, but he told her to get to the floor and to try to escape after he realised that there was actually a fire.
Previous visitors had found the escape room to be in poor condition, complaining about a strong smell of gas. Jarosław Szymczyk, Commander-in-Chief of Police, stated that local officials were not made aware of complaints against the escape room. Firefighters on the scene needed to use specialized equipment to enter the building.

## Trial

The investigation of the fire was conducted by the Koszalin District Prosecutor's Office. The victims' parents joined the case as subsidiary prosecutors [pl]. Four people were arrested in connection to the case: Miłosz S., the designer and organizer of the escape room; Miłosz's grandmother Małgorzata W., in whose name the business was registered; Miłosz's mother Beata W.; and Radosław D., the employee on duty at the time of the incident. None of them pleaded guilty, and Miłosz and Radosław blamed each other. Miłosz said that Radosław went against policy by using the gas heater when customers were present and did not properly instruct the victims on how to use their walkie-talkie, and Radosław said that Miłosz did not give him sufficient health and safety training and claimed that Miłosz cut corners in regards to the safety of the escape room. The Koszalin district court sentenced Miłosz S. and Radosław D. to 2 years in prison and imposed a 10 year ban on conducting activities related to sports, recreation, and culture. Małgorzata W. and Beata W. were sentenced to 1 year in prison, 3 years of a suspended sentence, and were banned from running a business for 10 years. The court also declared 200,000zł compensation for each victim's family. The parents of the victims expressed dismay at the sentences, calling them "embarrassingly low". The court acknowledged that the defendants would have to live with the fact that they caused the death of the children, and took this into account with the sentencing.
There also was an investigation into the rescue operation. Some of the witnesses testifying at the trial stated that the paramedic who arrived at the scene did not perform resuscitation of the victims. According to some of the witnesses and the victims' parents, he assumed that they were dead too quickly. There also was an unauthorized person in the room with the emergency dispatcher.

## Aftermath
### Responses

Immediately after the tragedy, President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and United States Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher, amongst others, expressed their condolences to the families of the deceased. Duda described the incident as a "crushing tragedy" on Twitter. The mayor of Koszalin, Piotr Jedlinski, announced 6 January as a day of mourning for the city, and requested that residents do not hold entertainment events or parties. Performances at the Bałtycki Teatr Dramatyczny [pl] and cultural events at the Centrum Kultury 105 scheduled for 5 January were cancelled. The Epiphany procession that was meant to take place on 6 January in Koszalin was also cancelled. The victims of the fire were buried together on 10 January at the Koszalin municipal cemetery, with a song that Wiktoria had written and recorded playing.
Due to the tragedy, the Polish premiere of the film Escape Room was postponed and eventually canceled.

### Regulation

Before the incident, escape rooms in Poland were not required to be inspected by fire department officials. After this tragedy, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced the standardization of escape rooms in Poland. The regulations are to be set by the State Fire Service, the police, and building supervision inspectors.
In connection to the fire, the Minister of the Interior and Administration, Joachim Brudziński, ordered the Commander-in-Chief of the State Fire Service to carry out inspections of all escape room facilities in Poland. Czech and Lithuanian fire officials announced inspections of escape rooms in their respective countries in response to the tragedy. In Poland, 520 facilities were inspected, almost 2000 violations were found, and 102 bans on the use of the facilities were issued. By 7 February, 133 facilities had fixed all violations.
On 11 January 2019, Joachim Brudziński signed an amendment to the regulation on fire protection of buildings which introduced regulations specifying fire protection issues regarding evacuation in facilities where entertainment business activities are conducted. It required the practical checking of the organization of people's evacuation and verification of compliance with fire protection requirements at least once every 2 years. The justification to the draft regulation says that the amendment is a reaction to 4 January escape room fire in Koszalin.