Six people were taken to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries after a floor collapsed at a wedding venue in Tamworth, New Hampshire, around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office said.
The collapse happened while a wedding party of about 140 people were present, according to a joint release from the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department and the State Fire Marshal’s Office. The office confirmed there were no fatalities and said late Saturday that four of the people treated at the hospital had already been released.
A phone call to the venue, the Preserve at Chocorua, was not answered. Tamworth, a town of about 2,800 people, is around 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Concord, New Hampshire, near the western border of Maine. Phone calls to the MaineHealth Memorial Hospital went unanswered Saturday night.
The Fire Marshal’s Office said while more than 100 people gathered in a building called the Sap House at the venue, the floor buckled creating a 20-foot by 20-foot opening and sending about 70 people into the basement. Several people were trapped by the fallen beams and by farm equipment that had been stored on the lower floor.
An office spokesperson said in a release late Saturday that before first responders arrived, other guests and staff helped some of the people who had fallen climb out of the basement with the aid of ladders, and were rendering first aid to people with minor injuries. It was unclear how many people were treated at the scene, and investigators are still determining the extent of injuries.
A photo from the Fire Marshal’s Office shows a chandelier and white bunting decorating the ceiling above the buckled floor boards, as well as stacked benches that had been used for seating for the wedding before the collapse.
The Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the collapse along with the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department, a spokesperson said Saturday. Investigators believe the building “was over capacity” prior to the floor collapse, a spokesperson said in a release.
A first responder who arrived on scene shortly after 911 calls came in described half the floor of the building where the wedding ceremony was set to take place as having fallen into the basement over scanner traffic listened to on Broadcastify. He asked for more first responders to talk to witnesses, saying there were about 145 people present at the event. The responder also said they were carefully pulling people out of the building basement.
