The first couple of jobs I had were in restaurant kitchens and I very carefully checked the freezer doors to avoid getting locked in like in an episode of The Brady Bunch.
That’s one of those difficult situations where there’s an emergency procedure and emergency hardware in there that employees can be trained about. But the average citizen who’s never worked in that area would have no idea such a feature existed, much less how to use it. Unless it was prominently labeled and the area was lit. And that person could read that language. And …
After someone has worked in a couple of pro kitchens or grocery store freezer compartments they could probably sort out the emergency egress features of a strange brand of freezer. You could.
I sure have no background that’d help me figure it out.
Of course non-employees aren’t supposed to wandering around in those areas. “Authorized personnel only” applies. It just hurts to read of accidents where the engineers provided safety and the victim, through completely reasonable ignorance, didn’t know about it. Such a waste.
Shouldn’t instructions be posted on the escape thingy.
Not saying all yokels can read. But prominate red or yellow arrows, perhaps?
Safety release latches/handles are also standard equipment on the inside of morgue fridge doors - though I’ve always been careful never to let the door close on me during rare brief sorties inside.
There are door handles with glowing knobs for safe escapes, as offered by this company, which also provides helpful safety tips.
Just posting a pic of the style I’ve seen
Gives a sense of how it works. The latch, which has the lock built in, just drops off the outside.
It sounds like the workings of these safety latches are not necessarily immediately obvious to the lay person. Perhaps if someone was calm they could figure it out, but someone who is panicking might not be thinking clearly. Do the lights stay on when the door closes? If they turn off, I could definitely imagine a random person panicking from suddenly being in a pitch black freezer and becoming very confused. Even a normal doorknob or latch might confuse them. For instance, there are stories about people being trapped in burning buildings because they were doing something like pushing on a door that only opened inward. In their panicked state the only thing they could think was “Push the door open”.
Decades ago when I worked in restaurants, the latch on the inside of the walk-in cooler or refrigerator was simple; push to open the door.