DIY Shopper Crushed Under 600 Pounds of Ceramic Tiles, Dies

A Michigan man died in a freak accident Saturday while shopping at a home improvement store.

Richard V. Colletti, 38, of Clinton Township was crushed when a pallet holding about 600 pounds of ceramic tiles fell 15 feet from an upper storage rack at the Menards store, 45500 Market Place Blvd., in Chesterfield Township, WJBK, Channel 2, reports.

Colletti was rushed to nearby McLaren Hospital, but died later, Chesterfield Township police said.

Colletti and his wife were shopping about 10:30 a.m. when the tiles fell. Chesterfield Police Lt. Bradley Kessler said employees had had placed a pallet of tiles on the shelf just moments before the accident that killed Colletti, but it’s too soon to tell if the accident stemmed from negligence.The investigation is continuing.

Saturday wasn’t the first time a shopper was injured or killed in a do-it-yourself supply store, and Eau Claire, WI-based Menards isn’t the only place they’ve occurred.

In 1999, a customer at The Home Depot in Santa Monica, CA, store died of head injuries after a 75-pound box of wood fell on her from a shelf 20 feet above, leaving her lying n a pool of her own blood, The Atlanta Business Journal reported.

The newspaper’s story on problems at Atlanta-based Home Depot, the nation’s No. 1 home improvement chain and fifth-largest retailer overall, also chronicled a fatal accident six months later at a Twin Falls, ID, Home Depot store. In that case, 2,000 pounds of kitchen countertops fell 10 feet from a forklift, crushing a 3-year-old-old girl.

Than, two months after that, a Danbury, CT, man died after he and his brother were hit by 2,000 pounds of falling landscape timbers at another Home Depot store. The man’s brother was seriously injured.

In 2009, two Menards shoppers from Indiana sued the hardware giant. One tripped over a “bunched-up rug”; the other claimed a piece of wooden crown molding fell from a shelf and injured her foot. WJBK also reported that another Menards customer sued for $385,000 in 2003 after her back was broken by a falling steel door, and that from 1997-2002, the retailers’ customers were injured in 16 separate incidents.

A lawyer representing one of the families that sued The Home Depot said the warehouse concept of DIY stores makes them dangerous.

“Shopping isn’t an inherently dangerous activity,” Los Angeles attorney Steve Rasak told the Atlanta Business Journal. “How can these things happen unless the stores are inherently dangerous?”

The accident may be a wake-up call to customers of large warehouse DIY home improvement stores to look up at what’s stored on upper shelves and be on the lookout for signs of instability.

“I just left there, but I didn’t look up,” Theresa Putnam told WJBK. “I was just looking for what I had to get and get out of there.”

The manager of the Chesterfield Township Menards store declined comment, and no one was available at Menards corporate offices, various news organizations, including The Detroit News, said. Reporters were also unable to reach Colletti’s family.

Colletti and his wife reportedly have a young son. She was not hurt in the accident.