A court in Granada has imposed a two-year prison sentence for a crime of injuries due to serious negligence on the owner and an employee of the 'escape room' in Cájar (Granada), who are held responsible for having burned a woman in June 2022 by dousing her with a liquid containing gasoline and setting her on fire, causing her serious injuries.
The judicial resolution, communicated this Monday and accessed by Europa Press, states that the businessman expressly allowed the use of gasoline and flames in the experience "without carrying out a minimum supervision of how, when, and which worker was mixing gasoline and water; what container they were using and whether it was sprayed on one or more people."
The magistrate of the Criminal Section of the Court of First Instance of Granada, Plaza number 5, maintains that the responsible party was aware that the activity was being carried out in the house known as 'Villa Amparo' without a license and with "absolute absence of safety measures," nor emergency protocols, with staff lacking the necessary training and one of them even without a work contract.
Furthermore, no information was provided to the clients about the inherent risks of the test, which on the night of June 26, 2022, was carried out in the modality called 'hardcore', aimed at generating intense emotions.
The second convicted is the employee who threw the gasoline mixture on the victim, 42 years old, and subsequently brought a lighter without first checking the exact composition of the liquid used.
Previously, the woman had been immobilized with her hands tied behind her back and a rope around her neck from which she managed to free herself. When the worker returned, he poured gasoline over her, "in a stream," with a white jerrycan, and although she warned that it smelled "very much like gasoline," she received no response.
The employee then activated a lighter and, although the woman blew twice to try to extinguish the flame, on the third attempt she did not succeed "and began to burn."
During those moments, the victim heard how another friend participating in the game, placed in a trunk, told her to roll on the ground, but she could not do it; she took off her shirt, the worker left the room and "returned with a fire extinguisher putting out the flames."
Next, her friends arrived, who heard her screams from another room, they took her to the patio and there they poured water on her, after which she was evacuated by ambulance to the hospital, where she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.
The woman suffered severe second-degree deep burns on her face, neck, and other body areas, having to undergo surgical intervention three times and being left with significant permanent sequelae.
The judge has decided to acquit, on the contrary, the other worker present that day, who lacked a contract and did not intervene in the actions that led to the participant being burned during the course of the game.
According to what is stated in the resolution, her contribution was limited to telling the group that the plot was set in a museum, that they should go through the different rooms solving enigmas and that they should not touch the objects that were not marked, "nothing more."
The sentence, against which an appeal can be filed before the Granada Court, imposes on the employer and the employee, as responsible authors of a crime of injuries due to gross negligence, two years in prison and two years of special disqualification to exercise their profession, trade, or position.
The Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution, represented by the HispaColex law firm, had demanded that the convicted pay the victim nearly two million euros for the injuries and damages caused.
However, this compensation is being processed in an independent civil procedure to avoid further delays in the criminal case. After the incident, the escape room announced the suspension of its activity.