When I was about 4 or 5 my shoelace got caught in an escalator between the belt and the landing. Yanked the aglet off but not before freaking me out.
I use to cringe when it was trendy for mall rats to walk around with their shoes untied.
Happened to me in the New Orleans Superdome years ago. I was 8 yrs old. My dad had to yank on the shoe to free it. I think I was crying because I thought it was going to eat me.
Then at age 16 my cousin showed me a little trick to do at the mall when the escalator is loaded with people. Wedge your foot between adjacent treads and toward the top the escalator will stop suddenly. People will stumble forward and look around all confused.
Yes looking back I know see what a little pain in the arse I was. Anyway, there must be some sort of safety mechanism to stop the escalator if something is wedged in it.
Good thing you didn’t find one with a broken safety.
I once was working near where an escalator repairman was working on one in a building I managed. He had a couple steps removed and was running the escalator, stepping backwards to examine steaps as they came up behind him. (Picture him facing upward, it was moving up, and he was stepping backwards to stay stationary)
He must have lost count, or neglected to notice the empty step coming behind him, and fell into the machinery under the missing step. He was dragged up to the top of the thing and someone managed to hit the emergency stop just as he got there.
They saved the leg, but it was pretty mangled and he’s still on disability.
My lesson was to become on constant escalator alert. I’m totally anal about watching my step on those things. I’ll walk up the stairs whenever I can to avoid one.
that guy should be fired and blacked balled.
I have seen people hurt when an escalator stopped and they were not ready for it. And not all escalators have skirt switches at the top. And if one that you try this on does not or it fails you could give up a few toes. Think of trying to stop a geared 5 hp motor with a body part.
Nice. Unfortunately he was only partially crippled and lives in pain for the rest of his life because he was careless enough to become distracted for a few seconds. Damn right, not nearly enough punishment, blackball the bastard!!!
My cousin lost all of the toes and a portion of his foot in an accident on an escalator when he was 8 years old. He had his foot flush against the side wall of the escalator and his shoelace was pulled into the mechanism at the top. Then a portion of his shoe was caught in the mechanism and that pulled his foot in and the bones were damaged beyond repair, let alone the damage to the flesh. It all happened in less than 60 seconds time.
Shortly thereafter, as part of the settlement, because the escalator was found to be faulty (there was too much space between the edge of the tread and the wall at the side at the very top and bottom of the rise) the department store where it occurred (the late, lamented Gimbel’s in Pittsburgh) replaced their escalators and painted a four inch wide yellow line on both sides of the treads of all of their escalators, with warnings that “to avoid injury” passengers should not travel with their feet in that yellow zone. To this day, if I have to use an escalator I stand in the dead center of the tread.
On the up side, the cash my cousin received, judiciously invested, put him through NYU and Georgetown Law.
Aw. 
I recently saw a seeing-eye dog who’d gotten a nail on a hind paw ripped off by a train station escalator. The handler said she didn’t hear a thing from the dog, didn’t know anything was wrong until a passerby told her that her dog’s paw was leaving a trail of blood. (As I watched, the passerby cleaned the dog’s paw, stopped the bleeding with flour given by a nearby restaurant, and gave the baggie of flour to the handler to apply if she found/was told the bleeding restarted. Train station personnel got the two to their train safely.)
He did an extreamly stupid thing. And you are right he is paying a high penality, sorry. There are some jobs and times where you do not get careless because you will get hurt. Sorry I over reacted.
My shoe got caught in the side when I was a kid. It got really hot and ripped the shoe open. I was not hurt, thankfully. Luckily, we were at the mall so I got a new pair of shoes right away.
I can’t imagine allowing a dog to stand on an escalator. I have had my dog on an escalator a handful of times, but I pick him up and carry him. If I wasn’t able, I’d take stairs or escalator.
Does anyone know what kinds of safeties are built into modern escalators? I could see a slip clutch of some type being employed or torque settings on a drive. What other means are used?
*LF8R
No slip clutch.
4 skirt switches, incase somethng caught between a step and the side of a landing
Over speed safety.
Broken drive chain safety.
Phase Revesal safety
a safety on the landing ( do not remember proper name) that tripps if the landing is pushed back.
Handrail motion safety in case the hand rail stopped.
A safety where the handrail goes into the base.
Broken step chain safety.
Not all escalators will have all these safeties. And they may not work so do not depend on them.
Another safety feature on some escalators, when a stop happens on a up esclator there should be a time delay before the break is applied, on a sown escalator there should be no time delay.
I am missing 1 or 2.
Now that he’s a lawyer, does he specialize at suing escalator companies?
From the way they certainly got battered around when he was sucked in, I’m pretty sure he already has been.
Assuming you means “stairs or elevator” for that last sentence. Anyway, these are all service animals that are injured, it looks like–and they’re usually not little yip dogs that it’s easy to have an armfull of and not kill yourself getting off the end of the escalator when you can’t see where it is (hence, service animal).
I see. I would think people who get service dogs would be instructed at the outset to avoid escalators.
I have a whippet. 35 lbs., easily carried. If I had a heavier dog, stairs or elevator for me.
Not always an obvious option. In the building where I work, for example, in order to get from the level I usually enter on, the only way to get to my elevator bank is to take an escalator, unless I walk through the bank (the kind with money, not the grouping of elevators) to the other side of the building, in which case there’s another bank of elevators that I could take up or down a floor, then transfer to my elevators.
ETA:
It’s very easy to say what one “would” do in a certain situation–it’s another entirely to actually be in that position.
Actually he specializes in disability law. Work with what you know. 