Four people were injured Thursday night when a fixture fell from the ceiling of a restaurant in the Noble Square neighborhood on Chicago's Near West Side.
The four were taken from the Kin Sushi and Thai Cuisine restaurant, 1134 N. Milwaukee, to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Two had minor injuries and two others were in serious condition Thursday night.
"It must have weighed a couple hundred pounds," said Kira Novak, who as at the restaurant celebrating her birthday.
The falling fixture sent shards of glass flying and pinned several of Novak's friends.
"Only half of it fell. It the whole thing had fell, we would have all been dead," she said.
One of Novak's friends remained in the hospital late Friday with air trapped in her lungs, a broken nose, 10 staples in her head and a bulging disc in her back.
After the accident, the restaurant covered its storefront windows with brown paper and placed a sign on the storefront saying the restaurant was closed for "renovation" but would re-open soon.
Officials from the restaurant declined to speak to the media, but inspectors from the city's Department of Buildings surveyed the damage.
"[We'll look] at how the fixture was support, any reasons why it might have come down [and] actually the structure above the fixture," said inspector Jack Hammersmith.
Kin Sushi and Thai is on the first floor of a condo building that appears modernly built, but a former resident in the building said it was cheaply made and was falling apart.
