A floor collapsed during a birthday party at a house in Arapahoe County, Colorado, causing as many as 150 teenagers to fall into the basement, according to a chilling video that was broadcast on social networks.
The owners of the residence organized a birthday celebration for their grandson of 18 years when the incident occurred around 9: 30 pm on Saturday in the southeast suburb of Aurora, in Denver, reported the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, according to 9News.
After the fall, three people were taken to a hospital, and one of them suffered serious injuries when fall, while the other two only suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, according to local firefighters.
Prior to the collapse of the floor, the birthday party got out of control after to run the voice in social networks of the celebration, which caused many people to show up at the house, according to reports.
“I think it leaked a bit, so everyone thought it was just a day of open doors”, said Cass Henry, one of the guests at the party to 9News, who suffered a broken ankle, adding that gradually people began to appear.
Cass detailed that her brother , AJ, aged 18, was among those attending the celebration, and both were victims of the collapse.
“Two seconds before the ground ended breaking, you could hear everything crumbling, but there wasn’t enough time to do anything about it,” he said.
For his part, Scott Richardson, chief of special operations for the South Metro Fire Department, said he was surprised that no one ended up in critical condition or dead.
“It’s not the static weight of us just standing on the floor, but if people jump up and down, that creates what we call a ‘shock load’ on the floor, then really you can’t predict what’s going to happen,” Richardson said.
Shiling Pei, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, indicated that most of the floors of houses are designed to withstand 40 pounds of pressure per square foot.
“The load on that floor when collapsed is about 2.5 times the design live load,” Pei said. “The fact that people jump to the rhythm of the music doesn’t help”.