1 man dead, 1 critically injured after railing collapses at Ala Moana Center
A 21-year-old man was killed and another 21-year-old man is in critical condition at the hospital after the metal railing they were leaning on collapsed Sunday night and they fell four floors on the mauka side of Ala Moana Center.
The Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the man who died as Nicholas Freitas of Honolulu.
An autopsy will be conducted to determine cause of death.
Police said the accident occurred at 9:45 p.m.
Emergency Medical Services said the two men were treated by paramedics near the Barnes & Noble Book Store at Ala Moana Center and taken in critical condition to the hospital.
The accident occurred several hours after the stores at the shopping center closed at 7 p.m. Sunday.
45 responses to “1 man dead, 1 critically injured after railing collapses at Ala Moana Center”
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I suspect they may have been clowning around. One guy I can see an accident but 2?
Brah they could have just been leaning against the rail waiting for their friends or just talking story. This is a tragedy for their families. Deepest condolences.
This story was updated to include information that the railing collapsed after Lokela posted the comment. At first I thought the same as him, since those railings are pretty high but it seems it was through no fault of their own that they fell. Yes it’s a tragedy.
agree..but why were they there after closing hours?
I agree. Maybe they are not been inspected to make sure they are safe in a long time. I always worry about something like that happening.
As is the standard in the Nei, preventive maintenance is a lost art as is building to standards.
OSHA regulations require railing to withstand a 200lb force at the top with no bending or give. While this railing may have met the initial standard, it is clear Ala Moana Center maintenance did not perform regular checks of railings to ensure they were not degraded. https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=12759
When the HIOSH investigation is complete, family of those who died may have the information they need to file a wrongful death suit against Ala Moana Center.
This did not have to happen.
Will HIOSH be involved? Unless this was a workplace accident, I don’t believe they will.
With all the construction that went on, you would think the property owners would have had the opportunity to inspect the whole place, but I guess not. Also, maybe our standards for railings should be increased as America gets more and more obese (and also revise those “maximum capacity” numbers for elevators to reflect that the average person no longer weighs 150 pounds).
Hope the property owners of the shopping mall have liability insurance? Ambulance chasers are making inquiries so they can get on the ground floor to see who they can nab. Condolences to the families, it need not have to have happened!
You are right. Jumped the gun. Just read about it. Condolences go out to the family.
I suspect the same. I think the only way to fall 4 stories in that area would be to fall from the very top level over the railing. I think they would have landed in the parking lot below Barnes and Noble, if I’m picturing it right. Those railings are pretty high, it’s not easy to fall over.
Brah – try read – the railing collapsed!!! How does a railing collapse? Faulty installation? poor design? No matter what they were doing, the railing shouldn’t collapse right? Well, unless you hit it with a car…
I posted my comment right before the story was updated. The previous version just said they fell, no mention of a railing collapse. I commented based on the information available at the time.
This article is not clear. I still can’t picture how they fell 4 stories — there are two floors above Barnes & Noble with metal railings (the 2nd and 3rd floors). And above that, the very top (4th floor) above Barnes & Noble (where Tsukiji was and Macaroni Grill is) has cement walls, not metal railings. So did they fall from the 3rd floor? Was the metal railing permanent or part of a construction area (is work being done near the old Shirokiya)? Is Ala Moana checking all other railings? So many details missing.
I think one of them died.
Yeah, another story said one passed away. They were leaning against a metal railing when it gave way. My deepest ALOHA to his ohana. Hope the other person makes a full and speedy recovery.
Wow, you must have read the headline.
Wish people would look at the “updated” time and realize that comments made before that time might be based on different information. The original story said 2 people were only injured, not that one died.
Mori, I guess justmyview371 just woke up because in the original story the 2 guys were critical. If he read from the first story, he would know no one died. Even the headline is not the same. Headline and story might be “updated” again. Some people think the story they read now is the only one with no new versions.
mori is right
Wow, justmyview371. You must not have read the ORIGINAL story before our comments. If the condition of the second guy changes, the story will change too.
Nice pics of the area to accompany the story. Pfft.
How tragic and so sad. My condolences go out to the family 🙁
Nick Was a big boy. He was 6’3″ 265lb when he played football for Roosevelt HS.
“A 21-year-old man was killed and a another 21-year-old man…” Nice job, editor!
KHON’s website has at least a picture of the area of the missing railing section. Hard to see but you can make it out. These two do not deserve to die or to be critically injured but the moral of the story is don’t test the strength of a railing to see if can support either the weight of a person or use large enough forces with your body to make it collapse. Most people do not even touch railings other than to put their hand on to go up/down stairs or to keep them from walking into an open space. Garans there is going to be a lawsuit and pretty sure General Growth Property is going to claim that the two 21 years olds, used excessive force on the railing that was not designed to support that much weight. Someone said one was an ex football players so just using a rough guess number of each person weighing about 200 pounds each and both where using almost full body weight on the railing, their claim would be their railing was not designed nor required to support over 400 pounds of excess weight. Hopefully way more information and pictures are going to be made public, maybe even video footage if they have it.
And that folks is another reason never to ride on that elevated train! Workmanship in Hawaii is woefully lacking and has been and will always be so. Condolences.
Sounds much more like critical wanking about your one endless issue than ‘condolences.’
The picture doesn’t really show the area the railing fell from, it was from the parking area above where people don’t usually lean on the railing or even walk by very often.
On the mauka Macy’s side there is a narrow opening between the walkway and the parking garage and if you look over railing the lowest level is the Coral or basement level where employees usually park. Not sure if they fell one story or two stories down but if they fell head first, it would not take much height landing on hard asphalt to result in death. You walk by the railings and they are completely painted and cannot see rust or wear but that does not stop Oahu’s corrosive salt environment from corroding metal to the point of failure like Aloha Stadium. As someone else mentioned the Oahu rail track will mostly likely meet a similar fate of metal support failure with extremely heavy (72,000 pound empty train cars running back and forth on the track support. Most of the time the train will be shut down for massive repair work, which is already happening now even before they are not even 1/2 finished.
General Growth, the owners of Ala Moana Shopping Center has never been the greatest owners when it comes to maintaining the “back end” of the malls. Sure the common area look nice, but the delivery areas, trash rooms, employee parking areas are total crap! The employee parking would flood every time it would rain. The delivery area connected to the trash area is dark, stink, and full of rats. Ask anyone who has worked there. General Growth sucks!!!
Agree but they get massive Hawaii tax breaks because they are a mainland company doing business in Hawaii and the reason they have developed their Ala Moana property to have a high end hotel/condo, million dollar town homes on the makai side, supersized their parking lot AND installed, easily over a 1,000 plus photo voltaic panels on their property.
With all the $Millions in rental income they receive in Hawaii, under Federal and Hawaii tax law, they pay no Hawaii income tax’ The tenants have been unhappy about this because they do not get the same break and they get no reduction in their rent.
Cause of death..you think it was falling 4 stories and the sudden stop…
About 10-15 years ago a similar tragedy occurred on the lanai of a Kapiolani Blvd condo. IIRC a couple of 20-somethings were leaning against a faulty railing when it collapsed.
Yes, remember the owner of the condo at the time was Kwan Hi Lim, a regular in the old Hawaii 5-0 and played the Asian version of the TV detective Columbo in Magnum PI.
Yeah, with his Aloha shirt and hat. Cigar, too? Not 100% sure.
I am so sorry. What a horrible way to die. I hope the injured man makes a full recovery.
https://lintvkhon.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/ala-moana-center-broken-railing.jpg?w=1250
Picture of rail
So sad. Aloha to the families.
Sad. Why did they not build the proper railings. Lawsuit will be a big one. They should CLOSE the mall and check every railing in that place.
Condolences to the families.
Are the railings aluminum or steel? I recall some of the railings are aluminum. Strong enough except that aluminum and concrete can react with each other and end up deteriorated and weak. Even steel embedded in concrete can corrode and the rust will often expand and crack the concrete. Requires regular inspection. Just a thought. YMMV.
Evening news showed several pics of other railings in the mall that were rusted at the base.
That sounds highly relevant when you look at the shot of the entire section that broke and fell. This was a multi-point simultaneous failure where the railing posts are embedded in the concrete. Hard to picture any other scenario or cause.