Man died in cinema after neck trapped under footrest as he searched for keys

A man died after becoming trapped under an electronic footrest in a freak accident at a cinema, an inquest has heard.

Ateeq Rafiq, 24, suffered “catastrophic” brain injuries when the mechanism pressed down on his neck as he searched for his keys and phone under his seat at the Vue multiplex in Birmingham.

He was trapped for 15 minutes as staff desperately tried to free him, Birmingham Coroner’s Court was told.

Rafiq and his wife had been watching a film in “gold class” cinema seats at the Star City complex before the freak accident in March last year.

The footrest was in a raised position when the father-of-one, from Aston, began looking for his possessions, which had fallen out of his pocket during the movie.

But the machinery quickly descended on him as his wife, Ayesha Sardar, tried unsuccessfully to hold it up.

She told the inquest Rafiq’s “whole body” was under the chair “with only his legs sticking out”.

“He shouted in pain and I told him to get out from under there,” Ms Sardar said in a statement read to the jury. “I tried to pull the footrest off but couldn’t.”

She ran to get help from staff, who eventually managed to free Rafiq by removing a bolt from the seat.

Rafiq suffered cardiac arrest but was revived by paramedics and taken to Heartlands Hospital.

He died a week later of brain injuries, area coroner Emma Brown told the jury of six men and five women.

Pathologist Olaf Biedrzycki said Rafiq, who had a three-year-old daughter, had suffered swelling to the brain caused by a cardiac arrest after pressure to his neck.

Dr Biedrzycki added: “There is nothing in the heart that could have caused this cardiac arrest. It seems that the footrest was either pressing on the right side of his neck or the back of his neck.”

On the first day of the inquest on Thursday, a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigator said Rafiq’s chair was one of eight in the 52-seat cinema on which the footrest was impossible to lift by hand.

Principal specialist inspector Charles Simmons-Jacobs told the hearing that other luxury seats had footrests that were fitted with a different mechanism that allowed them to be lifted.

But the “gold class” seats were fitted with a pressure pad, meaning the controls only worked when a customer was seated.

After a customer vacated one of the seats, the control box waited for four seconds before returning the headrest and footrest to vertical positions, the inquest heard.

Ms Sardar paid tribute to her partner as “a loving father, son, husband and friend”.

She added: “He was always keeping himself active and had a brilliant sense of humour. His smile was the kindest and his heart was the greatest.

“There is not a day goes by that we don’t miss him and think of him. He is now a beautiful memory.”

The inquest is expected to last up to seven days.

Additional reporting by agencies