Escape room fire kills 5 teens in Poland
![Police and firefighters stand in front of a place, where a fire that broke out in an escape room killed five teenage girls, in the northern Polish city of Koszalin on January 4, 2019.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/mWToPyLrXrpW6sccKkc2k5-415-80.jpg)
Five teenage girls were killed and one other person injured when a fire broke out in an escape room in Koszalin, Poland, on Friday.
The girls were attending a birthday party when a fire thought to be caused by a gas leak was started in an adjacent room. They were likely killed by carbon monoxide inhalation, while the sixth victim was hospitalized with severe burns.
"A devastating tragedy in Koszalin," Polish President Andrzej Duda tweeted. "Five joyous, growing girls have been torn out of their lives. God bless their parents and relatives." Local authorities said all escape rooms will now be required to have evacuation plans including a staff member prepared to help guests make quick emergency exits.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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