By PATRICK GOWER
A large speaker crashed 4m onto the seat 12-year-old Reena Mission had left just moments before as she watched a movie in the Force Entertainment Centre in Queen St.
"I might be dead by now if I had not moved," she said. "I was underneath it just 60 seconds
before."
Occupational Safety and Health is investigating the Sunday incident, two months after 16-year-old Danial Gardner was fatally injured in a fall from a barrier at the centre on September 23.
The falling speaker hit Reena on her right shoulder, its wires scratching open her left arm.
Her father, Renato Mission, said only a few loose wires were left hanging from where the speaker he estimated as weighing 20kg had fallen from the wall above their seats.
He ushered Reena from the theatre just 15 minutes into the movie Frequency, the Mission family's first outing since he and his wife, Rowena, separated three months ago.
OSH spokesman Justin Brownlie said Force Entertainment notified it of the accident yesterday. It would begin a separate investigation.
Force Corporation chief operating officer Joe Moodabe said an investigation into why the speaker had fallen was under way and other speakers had been checked.
Reena, who attends St Mary's College in Ponsonby, was taken to Ascot Hospital in Greenlane and discharged after her bruises and scratches were attended to.
moved seats.
"A punch can kill a person, and this speaker that fell landed with 10 times the power of a punch."
nteMr Mission said the Force centre's offer of a free movie ticket just rubbed salt in the wound.
"That was quite some joke. If your daughter almost got killed would you let them go back in that place?"
Danny Shepherd was sitting behind the Mission family when the speaker fell. "I heard a hell of a thump when it hit. There was blood all over the place, and if she had been sitting directly under where it hit she could have been killed."
Mr Shepherd said staff were slow to react. "I said, 'You had better stop the film because one of your speakers has just fallen onto someone,' but they didn't seem that concerned. They didn't even stop the film.
"They got her a couple of paper towels, but there was nothing urgent about it."
By PATRICK GOWER
A large speaker crashed 4m onto the seat 12-year-old Reena Mission had left just moments before as she watched a movie in the Force Entertainment Centre in Queen St.
"I might be dead by now if I had not moved," she said. "I was underneath it just 60 seconds
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