Child Crushed To Death At Rotating Restaurant, Internet Blames His Parents

He was only a few feet from his family when he got stuck

A five-year-old boy died this past Friday in a tragic accident at a rotating restaurant. He was only a few feet away from his family when the unthinkable occurred, and naturally, the internet is already blaming the child’s parents for his death.

It’s so easy to be perfect from behind a phone screen, isn’t it?

According to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, the child and his family were dining at the Sun Dial, a rotating restaurant in Atlanta located on the 72nd floor of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel. The floor of the restaurant slowly rotates and somehow, the boy got caught between the wall and a table as the dining area continued to rotate. The family’s table was by a window, but the child wandered for a moment and was crushed just a few feet from where his parents were sitting.

Restaurant staff and patrons were able to free him (the floor automatically stopped rotating once he became stuck) but he was severely injured by then. Atlanta Police spokesman Warren Pickard tells WRAL, “A small child don’t know what to do in those moments, and it crushed his little small body.”

“We simply think he lost sight of his parents and panicked and found himself in that situation,” Pickard explains.

The child was taken to nearby Grady Memorial Hospital and died of his injuries later in the afternoon.

By all accounts, this was a tragic accident and anyone with sense would realize that the parents of this child will suffer for the rest of their lives, beating themselves up over whether they could’ve prevented their son from being crushed to death. Let’s repeat that — crushed to death. It’s hard to think of a more horrific way to die and on top of that, his mother and father witnessed the entire thing.

But that doesn’t stop the perfect parents of the internet from weighing in. The Facebook comments on this one are nothing short of infuriating.

Restaurants aren’t playgrounds, they are places for dining. I’ve seen so many loose kids nearly trip the wait staff. If they can’t sit down and enjoy a meal at a restaurant, then they’re not ready to eat at a restaurant.

This is awful – and I don’t mean to blame the parents but they should always manage their kids.

So sorry for this little boy. I see it all the time, parents allowing little children to run free. It’s not your home. Supervision of your children is expected. Tears for this little lost soul because of neglect.

This is a good reason to not let your bratty kids run wild in a restaurant. Especially dumb ones that manage to get themselves wedged in between the wall…

Apparently, many people have either never gone out to eat with a five-year-old or are simply complete morons. To the genius suggesting a child who can’t sit down the whole time isn’t ready to eat at a restaurant? There are grown adults who get antsy and wander over to the bar or head outside for a bit while they wait for their meals. The child became stuck only a few feet from his parents, which hardly sounds like the “running free” neglect scenario these horrible people are concocting in an effort to blame the parents.

And you know what? Even if they did let their guard down for one minute after an exhausting day of parenting their small child, does anyone think they could’ve known the result would be his death? Is any amount of dragging on Facebook ever going to come close to the guilt and despair they’re currently feeling and will feel for the rest of their lives? The fact that anyone’s first instinct is to vilify a pair of grieving parents who lost their son in a grisly accident really speaks to the state of modern society. How fucking nice to be perfect and judge everyone from your perch.

Let’s just hope that those who dare to judge and blame are always perfect and never on the other side of something so completely, unimaginably awful. It would be the worst way to learn that everyone makes mistakes and accidents do happen. Despite a parent’s best efforts otherwise.