An inquest into a death at a Birmingham, UK cinema last year has found that 24-year-old Ateeq Rafiq died after he was trapped by the neck under a cinema seat footrest.
Jurors on the inquest were told that Rafiq, a father of one, had been searching for his keys and phone after seeing a film with his wife at a “gold class” cinema in the Star City complex.
He’d squeezed all the way underneath the seat in search of his belongings, when a blown fuse meant the electronically-powered footrest of the luxury seat quickly came down on his neck.
According to the report, cinema staff and Rafiq’s wife, Ayesha Sardar, spent 15 minutes trying to free him. Eventually the bolts were removed from the chair, but it was too late.
He had suffered a heart attack caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain, and a week later died from what coroner Emma Brown described as “catastrophic” brain injuries.
Sardar told the inquest court about the freak accident, saying:
He shouted in pain and I told him to get out from under there. I tried to pull the footrest off but couldn’t. I ran outside to get help but no one heard me.
When she returned, she found that he was not breathing, and had started to turn blue.
A health and safety investigation found that it was impossible to lift eight out of the 52 footrests in the gold class theatre.
