
Georgine Benvenuto after being whacked in the face by a drone.
Drones are slowly becoming more and more noteworthy as they become more and more available to the general public. No longer are drones solely the property of the US military. These days, drones are doing all sorts of tasks, but for the most part, they’re used as publicity stunts or as fun toys to play with. For example, TGI Friday’s is using drones at some of its restaurants for a little holiday cheer with a “mobile mistletoe” stunt. Turns out, flying aircraft indoors is a bad idea. A photojournalist covering the mistletoe drone’s debut at TGI Friday’s was injured when the drone’s blades hit her. She received a cut on the end of her nose and additional cuts on her face, with a little chunk of nose being removed by the spinning blades.
“It literally chipped off a tip of my nose,” said Georgine Benvenuto, a photographer from Brooklyn’s Courier Life who was there to document the event. “It took off part of my nose and cut me here, right under my chin. Thank god it didn’t go anywhere under my eye — that is my livelihood.”
Of course, TGI Friday’s says that the problem wasn’t on their end, but on Benvenuto’s. The drone was going to land in a reporter’s hand and she flinched, knocking the drone into Benvenuto’s face. The employees of Friday’s maintain that their safety record is excellent where the drones are concerned, and that at other Friday’s locations with the mobile mistletoe, no accidents have been reported. The restaurant chain maintains that they are going to keep the drones flying for the foreseeable future.
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