Incident at Hotel in Hockenheim

Yesterday a battery pack of one of the registered teams for FSG 2016 caught fire in a hotel room in Hockenheim. The incident injured 4 of the team members that were treated in hospital. 3 were released later during the day whereas one of the team members is still in treatment with burn injuries.

The fire substantially damaged the building and a part of the hotel had to be closed. The fire and the incident overall have been handled by the local fire department, ambulance service and police.

Whereas detailed information about the case is not yet available it appears that the team has violated several of the FSG behavioral rules of safe working. For that reason, the FSG decided to exclude the team from participation in the FSG 2016.

Independent from that FSG will support the team to handle the interaction with German authorities and to overcome the implications of the incident for the team.

We use this as a reason to once more pledge to follow the rules and advise FSG has implemented to ensure a safe competition.

As a direct consequence of this incident the FSG team has decided to exclude any team from the competition that removes any safety critical part from the event site to work on it at external sites without prior alignment.

We thank the local authorities who handled the case and have avoided further harm to individuals!

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