Crip sues mall over evacuation procedures
Silver Spring, MD, March 3, 2003 -- When a fire alarm sounded the day wheelchair user Katie Savage was shopping at Marshall's, the store "announced that all shoppers were required to leave the store due to an emergency," but when Savage got out of the store and into the interior of the mall, Marshall's had "locked the gate that separated the store from the mall; the elevator was shut down; no emergency exits were accessible; and no one from the mall or Marshalls offered to assist in the evacuation of customers with disabilities." Savage "was forced to wait in the mall for nearly an hour, listening to alarms and sirens and fearing for her life, until an announcement finally was made that the emergency was over and that the mall would re-open."