DragonCon 2017 attracted more than 80,000 fans to the pop culture-sci-fi convention in downtown Atlanta. Unfortunately for a couple con-goers it wasn’t all parties and costumes.
Two women are recovering from head injuries after they were hit by chairs thrown from a tenth floor Marriott hotel balcony Sunday Sept. 3rd around 1:40. The Atlanta police department is investigating, but suspects have not been located. Congoers Kelly McDaniel and Jamie Temple-Thompson Amador both wound up in the hospital after being struck with the falling chairs. McDaniel credits her Loki headdress with saving her from further injury – she was struck in the head and wound up with staples.
Director of Media Relations for DragonCon sent Channel 2 the following statement:
“Two women at Dragon Con were injured at the convention early Sunday morning when two chairs were dropped from an outside balcony on the 10th floor in the Marriott to a landing below. The women were treated and released at separate hospitals.We are grateful that the injuries were not more severe. And we are proud of the Dragon Con attendees who stepped up quickly, realized the severity of the situation and provided immediate assistance.”
Kelly McDaniel and Jamie Temple-Thompson Amador
Reaction from the DragonCon community has been supportive of the two cosplayers as well as the convention. Jennifer M., who drove from LA with Amador told AJC.com, “The love and support from the Dragon Con family is heart warming to say the least. We can’t wait to return for an even better experience, and reconnect with our new Atlanta family!” Atlanta resident Tim M. shared with RWOG, “The security and crowd control were on point: authoritative but polite and professional… I was consistently impressed with the way they and the various hotels’ security as well as Dragon Con’s own volunteers remained visible and engaged, but let people have their fun.” Long-time Dragoncon attendee Jessica H. added “I’m actually surprised they’re not even more incidents given the number of people in the way hotel room are configured. All in all, I bet incident rates of this type are extremely low.” “DragonCon security operations do a lot of hard work to keep stuff like this from happening… But every year there is something. I honestly don’t think that this is going to slow down the con. Sh*t happens, people do their best to prevent it, and at the end of the day it’s up to people to self police themselves and their friends.” came from regular Con volunteer Shayna A. And yet another con attendee (who preferred not to be named) mentioned there were incidents regarding “throwing bottles and beer cans off balconies every year but for that many people they do a great job of keeping the crowd safe.”
Birds Eye View of the Con from the Marriott Balconies
Ultimately we’ll be waiting to see what both the Marriott and DragonCon do to increase security for DragonCon 2018 in regards to this occurrence. RWOG is glad to hear both cosplayers are on the mend and we encourage anyone with information regarding this incident to contact the APD at 404-577-8477.
Real Women of Gaming 