Panic room

Workers prepare the ceiling of a panic room with reinforcing steel for the concrete casting. The panic room will later be used in the new building of a house and converted. The construction is relatively inexpensive and you can also build it yourself.

A panic room is a special room protected against violent intrusion within an apartment, an office, other private business premises or even a ship.

Construction

The panic room is used to withdraw those present if there is a threat from burglars or assassins. It is usually equipped with reinforced walls, an armored door and unbreakable windows and also has a telephone that can be used to call help from outside the building. Further equipment features can be: food and water, a toilet, separate ventilation , an option to monitor the area in front of the door using a camera or peephole , weapons for self-defense and emergency lighting . Such rooms have been built since the 1990s at the latest.

In contrast to this complex type of panic room, bedrooms in Europe are predominantly designed as panic rooms with the aim of being safe there until the police arrive. Therefore, food supplies, water reserves, etc. are not necessary - just a high level of passive security through doors and windows as well as effective external security with video surveillance and sensors that detect intruders.

Panic room on ships

Due to the increase in pirate attacks , especially off the East African coast, merchant ships are increasingly being equipped with panic rooms. They are intended to prevent the crew members from being taken hostage or human shields. Panic rooms on ships are often equipped with communication devices such as radio or satellite telephones as well as with technical devices for stopping ship engines. So could u. a. the crew of the heavy lift carrier Beluga Fortune took refuge in the panic room in the Indian Ocean on October 23, 2010. The pirates left the ship unsuccessfully because they could not take hostages and a British frigate was approaching.

Known missions

The Danish caricaturist Kurt Westergaard was able to save himself from an attempted murder in the panic room of his apartment on January 1, 2010. This was installed after Westergaard received death threats due to the publication of his Mohammed cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed .

Panic room in popular culture

In public, the term of the panic room was mainly due to the US cinema thriller Panic Room known (2002). Its action takes place largely in a panic room. Also in the US television series Supernatural (2005) and in the television series Eureka (season 2, episode 13), a panic room is included in the plot. In the US TV series 24 , the President of the USA also flees to a panic room (season 7). In 2009, Westdeutscher Rundfunk produced a radio play Panikraum (author: Thomas Koch). The Spanish-Colombian thriller The Hidden Face (2011) is also about a panic room.

Individual evidence

^ Joel Skousen: The Secure Home. 3rd edition, Swift Learning Resources, Utah 1999, ISBN 1-56861-055-6 .
↑ The movie panic room as a best seller. In: Focus Online . April 29, 2002, accessed January 5, 2020 . .
↑ Panic rooms are all the rage. In: Stern.de . June 24, 2002, accessed January 5, 2020 .

[1] Joel Skousen: The Secure Home. 3rd edition, Swift Learning Resources, Utah 1999, ISBN 1-56861-055-6 .

[2] The movie panic room as a best seller. In: Focus Online . April 29, 2002, accessed January 5, 2020 . .

[3] Panic rooms are all the rage. In: Stern.de . June 24, 2002, accessed January 5, 2020 .