Talbot rescue drama... but it was only a drill
UP TO 100 people including guests and staff were evacuated from the Talbot Hotel in a dramatic event on a busy morning last week as two units of Wexford Fire Service arrived on the scene to rescue a person trapped in a 5th floor bedroom.
Patrons and employees gathered in a car park beside the hotel as the episode unfolded but passers-by need not have worried because it was all part of a fire drill organised in association with the fire service.
Area manager Robert Millar said the training exercise was arranged in the middle of a busy Festival period as the hotel wanted to test out its fire safety procedures in the wake of recent events such as the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in London.
‘Fire safety is of paramount importance for a hotel of our size and it is vital that staff and guests know what is required in the event of a fire,’ said Robert.
The fire alarm bells were sounded at 11.30am when the task of emptying the hotel began with hotel guests, festival art exhibitors and staff leaving the five-storey premises and gathering at an assembly point in the car park where they drew quizzical looks from passers-by. The evacuation took six minutes to complete.
‘Everyone co-operated with the evacuation and saw the value of it and we are very grateful to members of Wexford Fire Service for their assistance,’ said Robert, adding that the hotel’s deputy manager Paul Carr had liaised with fire officers.
A ‘casualty’ was rescued from a hotel bedroom and stretchered to safety during the fire drill