She beat on the freezer door until her hands were bloody, yet no one could hear her cries for help. Carolyn Robinson Mangham was trapped in a Sun Dial restaurant freezer overnight, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed this week. The following morning, Mangham was found frozen to death.
The freezer had a sign on the front that read, “CANNOT BE LOCKED IN” and “Inside handle will always operate to open the door,” but the latch failed on March 22, 2016, the lawsuit states. The suit, filed this week in Fulton County State Court, seeks unspecified damages and was filed on behalf of Mangham’s husband. The companies that manufactured the freezer and the handle and serviced the freezer are named as defendants in the litigation.
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“Mrs. Mangham reasonably relied upon this misrepresentation, false promise, and guarantee when she entered the walk-in-freezer and allowed the door to shut behind her,” the lawsuit states. “As a direct and proximate result of this reliance, Mrs. Mangham was locked in the walk-in-freezer and suffered the horrific experience of slowly freezing to death.”
Attorneys for either side could not immediately be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
Mangham, 61, was a well-liked and longtime employee of the Sun Dial. In addition to her husband, the East Point woman is survived by four children.
Atlanta police initially investigated Mangham's death, but determined it was not a criminal matter. About six months later, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded that the hotel violated the federal worker safety act and fined the hotel $12,471, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
The lawsuit, which requests a trial, asks for damages for pain and suffering, as well as funeral expenses.
In a separate incident, about 13 months later, a 5-year-old boy died after getting his head stuck beside a rotating wall in the Sun Dial. The restaurant temporarily closed following the boy’s death, and no longer rotates.
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