Life nets often failed to save people, and sometimes firefighters themselves were injured or killed by falling bodies. According to researcher and writer Cecil Adams, "Leapers sometimes struck something on the way down, landed on a fireman, or missed entirely." In November 1910, a fire swept through a factory in Newark, New Jersey, killing 25 people. Among them were four girls who held onto each other when they jumped into a life net. They tore the net apart and were killed. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911, girls jumped into life nets from the ninth floor with their arms intertwined and the impact ripped the canvas and tore the springs from the frame, resulting in their deaths. In all, 146 garment workers were killed in that fire. During the Hotel Polen fire in Amsterdam on May 9, 1977, firefighters could not successfully deploy a life net in a narrow, congested alley. When a life net was deployed in a more open area, some hotel guests threw their luggage into the net, and were then injured when they jumped. Others were injured when they hit the rim of the net. In all, 33 people died in that fire.