WHOA, THAT WAS CLOSE!

It's clear to me that we all have our designated days to be born and die. The more accidents I investigate, the more I'm convinced that our departure date is predetermined.

Let me share one of many cases that confirm this, but fortunately, this one had a happy ending.

I'll try not to be too explicit in describing the hotel where the events occurred, to prevent frequent visitors of Barcelona from easily identifying it.

A recently constructed glass building, tall (18 floors), modern, designed as a five-star hotel. I won't give more details, though I'm tempted.

As an "intelligent" building (which I question), all room windows are tilt-and-turn with a maximum vertical opening of 45 degrees. We're talking about large windows (1.20×2.00 m), triple-glazed 6+6+6, and heavy.

The hotel typically caters to high-income, mostly foreign, English-speaking clients (UK, USA, Canada, Australia).

As a luxury hotel, it has private shuttles, i.e., minivans transporting clients to and from the airport.

Day x, hour h. The shuttle picks up six American executives and heads to the hotel. So, seven people in the vehicle in total. They arrive without incident, parking the minivan right at the main entrance. All seven (including the driver) head to the lobby for a welcome, intending to have the hotel porters collect their luggage. But they never get that far, because as soon as they step out and cross the threshold, they hear a tremendous crash, seeing the minivan explode into the air, sliced in half as if it were a piece of mortadella.

I'll spare you the details of the anxiety and panic that gripped all seven of them. Initially, a terrorist attack was suspected, but as the investigation progressed, it was discovered that an entire windowpane (including the frame), like a knife, had sliced through the van's body.

It was found that the entire window of the main room on the 14th floor, directly above the hotel's main entrance, had detached just seconds after the clients arrived. You can imagine if it had hit all of them inside.

They were greatly shaken, but the important thing is that it wasn't their day.

Alberto Garom