Red triangle Stickers are often pasted on the window of tall buildings as firemen access. My question is, In this technological era, do you think the firemen must break the glass window with a hammer to save people? Is there any new technology to open the windows from the outside? What if this was in a hospital NICU ward? How effective is pasting signage with the message" no obstruction near the window"?
It would be nice if the Life Safety Code covered this issue.Please share your experience.
New modern construction for hospital's NICU for multi-infant rooms are required to have windows for most state licensure. Operable windows are no longer seen in hospitals because of the HVAC requirements.
I can tell you one thing from my experience, hospital life safety design and staffing has no effective means for occupant evacuation from a building without outside assistance.
Regulators often try to address a wide range and situations by writing very detailed “command and-control,” or prescriptive, codes and rules. There are around 470 provisions in the safety features of the Life Safety Code for evacuation. Do the regulators need more? However, in our state the decision for the withdrawal of occupants from a building is under the sole legal discretion of the local fire marshals, not the hospital's or state's discretion. The hospital, to be in compliance with the Life Safety Code, must develop building evacuation procedures in accordance with Section 4.8 as modified by Section 18/19.7.
To me, I can not see substantiation of how opening a window from the outside and posting sign would align with the with the total concept of the health care occupancies.
In my opinion because of the a hospital's limited resources for building evacuation, a hospital has to plan with the local fire marshal. The rescue through windows would be something the procedures could address on a case-by-case basis not mandated by some detailed wide ranging regulation.
Section 19.1.1.3 reads the same as below.