"structural incident" --

[Joel S. Berson]

a euphemism?

While we were in an emergency room waiting area yesterday, my
companion was conversing with a trio sitting nearby, two young people
and an older, somewhat less casually dressed man, all employees of a
Cambridge (Mass.) biotech firm.  One of the group, I don't know
which, called their event a "structural incident".  The two younger
people described how they had been hit on the head by things falling
from the ceiling.

My companion and I wondered whether the silent, perhaps deliberately,
older man was the one who would be responsible for dealing with any
compensation, and perhaps would be loathe to simply say "the ceiling fell".

Joel

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