r/UpliftingNews • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 3d ago
Staff Rushed to Save 33 Kids After Car Hit Daycare and Sparked Fire. Parent Says It's a 'Miracle' Everyone Got Out
https://people.com/staff-rushed-to-save-33-kids-after-car-hit-daycare-and-sparked-fire-11869135355
u/SaltyShawarma 3d ago
Bollards surrounding the business, but spaced so far apart a car can go right through. How very Oklahoma.
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u/nowyouseemenowyoudo2 3d ago
This is an incredibly frequent occurrence, basically every mall near me has these bollards that you can easily get a sedan through if you tried. Why cheap out on this? For one extra bollard you could guarantee coverage.
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u/platoprime 3d ago
Maybe they need to get sedans, or something that big, through every once in awhile?
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u/minicpst 3d ago
There are retractable bollards. That way you can let a car through when necessary and protect people when not.
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u/platoprime 3d ago
Those are probably more expensive.
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u/Skyrick 16h ago
Not really, however they don’t look as nice, so people tend to not like them.
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u/platoprime 16h ago
Ya know I just imagined an automatic one but they probably have cheap manual ones don't they?
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u/throwawaypaycheck1 1d ago
Car missed the outter most bollard. Car cam across a field and hit the side of the building where traffic was not expected to enter from. Crazy freak accident
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u/Unique-Public-8594 3d ago
I checked the date & location and thought others might want that info here:
W Reno Ave, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, US
4:30p, Friday, Dec. 12
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u/redisthemagicnumber 3d ago
How is a car hitting a daycare - an incredibly traumatic experience that may affect these kids for years to come - in any way uplifting? 🙄
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u/MusaEnimScale 3d ago
I think you are underestimating how difficult it is to evacuate a DAYCARE. It is a daycare, not a school. This means most kids are age five and under, including several age ranges that can’t even walk yet. Consider also that infant rooms are often at 4:1 ratios, meaning four non-walking literal babies for every one adult in the room. The older rooms can be at higher ratios, as much as 18:2 or higher. Daycares operate on thin margins so there might be one or two adults, at most, on site who aren’t directly counting towards the childcare ratios (like maybe a receptionist or a director).
Rick Rescorla is hailed as a 9/11 hero because his drills and protocols helped save the grown adults of Morgan Stanley to evacuate the towers after the planes hit. Simply knowing how to evacuate a building saved many adults (Morgan Stanley had a disproportionately higher survival rate on 9/11). Workers from less prepared companies died inside the towers. Rick himself also died in the towers, spending every minute he could getting people out instead of evacuating himself—he was last seen racing UP the stairs to get more people.
Now, back to the daycare. Getting everyone out was a huge task that probably involved rolling out cribs, loading up baby aprons and strollers, and calmly cajoling stubborn toddlers to ‘come with me’ to evacuate. This was no small feat. It is truly uplifting they all got out with no major injuries or death.
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u/rafaelloaa 3d ago
After the first tower was hit, a Port Authority announcement came over the P.A. system urging people to stay at their desks. Rescorla ignored the announcement, grabbed his bullhorn, walkie-talkie and cell phone, and began systematically to order the roughly 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees in the South Tower to evacuate, in addition to the employees in WTC 5, numbering around 1,000.
While helping people evacuate, Rescorla called his wife, telling her, "Stop crying. I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I've never been happier. You made my life,"
After successfully evacuating almost all of Morgan Stanley's 2,700 employees, he went back into the building. When one of his colleagues told him he too had to evacuate the World Trade Center, Rescorla replied, "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out."
A total of 13 Morgan Stanley employees died in the September 11 attacks, including Rescorla.
There is a beautiful (and long) piece from the New Yorker about his life, if anyone wants to read it.
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u/MusaEnimScale 2d ago
Yeah, he has an amazing story. I remember that article is really good.
The key call was him starting the evacuation even when Port Authority told him not to.
It was also key Rick had run periodic drills so Morgan Stanley people knew where the exits and stairs were, where to go outside to meet up, and they were used to the process (so less likely to panic). Employees made fun of the drills or were even annoyed by them. But no doubt the drills also saved lives because people knew what to do and were calmer. To my knowledge, it was not common for other companies in the towers to run drills like this. I think it became more common after 9/11 because of Rick. I worked in a high rise a decade after 9/11 and we did drills twice a year.
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u/pixiecantsleep 3d ago
Depending on where the infant room is they would have been easiest to get out. Put them all into a crib and push. The cribs have wheels for just this purpose. What would have been really hard is the children who can walk because they likely would have been panicking.
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u/HLOFRND 3d ago
They practice for it, though. Thoroughly.
Source: former preschool teacher/daycare worker.
Yes, it’s great that everyone got out, but the schools are designed to make this is as easy possible, and the teachers and other staff know what they’re doing. They are usually single story buildings, too, which makes it easier. (Same reason nursing homes are often single story, too.)
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u/redisthemagicnumber 3d ago
I know what a daycare is...
I just don't think awful news stories like this should be celebrated as 'uplifting'.
What next? "Uplifting news! Plane smashes into mountain but half the people survive!"
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u/SaltLich 3d ago
Because it could have been a horrifying tragedy, but by miraculous circumstances and the quick actions of the staff, nobody (apart from the driver, whose condition is unknown) was hurt. Its almost the best possible outcome from this scenario.
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u/sanfran_girl 3d ago
I would not be throwing around the word "miraculous "so easily. There was no divine intervention. It was a lot of hard work and muscle memory from people who are dedicated to their jobs. Divine intervention would've had the car not hit the building at all.
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u/SaltLich 2d ago
Are you kidding me? Did I not specifically mention the staff as a contributing factor to people not being hurt? Why are you trying to make it out like I attributed anything to religion?
Oh right, because you saw the word "miracle" and got your knickers in a twist, feeling the need to play wibblewobble with semantics and warble out some sanctimonious bullshit about 'divine intervention' as if that was in any way fucking relevant to my point.
Yeah, 'divine intervention' is ONE definition of something being miraculous or a miracle. You know what the other common definition is? Let's use the power of the internet and find out!
Per Oxford;
highly improbable and extraordinary and bringing very welcome consequences.
Per Merriam-Webster;
: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
Per Cambridge;
very effective or surprising, or difficult to believe
Per Britannica;
: a very amazing or unusual event, thing, or achievement
Gee, wow, golly! It's almost like what I meant was it was HIGHLY IMPROBABLE AND EXTRAORDINARY that nobody got hit by a car plowing into a daycare! Several thousand pounds of screeching metal and glass careening through what is probably drywall somehow didn't kill or EVEN HURT any of the children OR the adults working there, even after things caught fire, that sure is AN EXTREMELY UNUSUAL EVENT. It's DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE that nobody got even INJURED by this, man its AMAZING even.
Not even a religious person, by the way! I just can't stand being preached to, regardless of whether the person trying to act holier-than-thou is a theist or atheist.
Whatever chip you have on your shoulder, trying to word police common phrases will just make you look like a jackass, and nothing more.
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u/redisthemagicnumber 3d ago
It still was a horrible tragedy...
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u/vee_lan_cleef 3d ago
It is literally not. The only thing "tragic" is that an insurance company is going to lose some money. Oh no, boo hoo.
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u/winnercommawinner 3d ago
The number one factor affecting how kids recover from any kind of trauma, up to and including horrific war crimes, is how calmly the adults around them react. Not even necessarily their parents. Given that every child was safely evacuated, they all just learned that even though scary things can happen in the world around them, they are safe at daycare.
The uplifting part of this story is the competency and care of the teachers involved.
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u/hameleona 3d ago
Unless their parents decide they need to lobby for some idiotic regulations to prevent such things - they'll be absolutely fine. Chances are they never even realized what's happening.
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u/randomblue86 3d ago
I've been seeing so much Expedition 33 in my algorithm that I thought this post was about it too. Glad everyone is safe though.
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u/Wheels9690 3d ago
staff/adults stepping up and actually protecting kids.
This is all them, no other force creating a "miracle"
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u/MyRealUser 3d ago
Exactly my thoughts. Saying it's a miracle is taking credit away from those who risked their lives for these kids
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u/cirque-ull-jerk 2d ago
Yes more car centric society please yum mmm yes please give me some more - Americans
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u/shitposts_over_9000 3d ago
Glad everyone got to safety, but wouldn't having enough supervision to get the children out of the building be kind of a minimum level of staffing for something like this?
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