Escalator Accident Injury and Escalator Safety

Imagine that you’re taking your children or grandchildren shopping at a mall when all of a sudden their toes or part of their feet get swallowed up by a large and powerful metal dragon. This is not a horror fairytale but rather true to life experiences when innocent children who wear a certain type of shoes (perhaps their favorite shoes) face danger and injury on an escalator.

Escalators are everywhere – commercial properties, malls, department stores, airports, hotels, subways. If you, your children, or a family member has been injured caused by a hazardous or dangerous condition when entering, exiting, or riding on an escalator then you most likely should talk to a Pennsylvania escalator injury lawyer.

Recently there have been a noticeable amount of children who have experienced pain and escalator injury while wearing Crocs®, those colorful rubber clogs. Other shoes that may cause the same escalator injury hazards are flip-flops or other rubber shoes.

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"This is a hidden danger, not only in terms of the escalator equipment, but in the design of the shoes", said Joel D. Feldman, Esquire and co-author of Elevator and Escalator Accident Litigation and Reconstruction, 2nd edition. "The soles of these shoes are sticky and thus easily can become stuck in equipment. So, no slip is not always safe in terms of contact with escalators. These problems occur when shoes, like the crocs, which are very non-slip, and thus have a high coefficient of friction, touch the edge or skirt panels kids are riding down. These skirt panels are the first section of the vertical sidewall and extend about 3-6 inches above the steps. When built with less clearance gap, older ones tend to get loose and as kids feet stop or stick they get dragged into the gap. Code requires either that the skirt panel be composed of a low friction (slippery) surface or that they be treated with such, like silicone sparys. Thus, this is also a manitenance issue."

simply not designed to withstand the power generated by the mechanisms in an escalator and can substantially contributed to a child's foot becoming lodged in the escalator, resulting in a catastrophic injury to the child."

Crocs or rubber shoes and escalator injury accidents have included:

• 10-year-old girl whose toe was sucked between the escalator stair and the side wall at the Atlanta airport
• Child whose foot was caught and mangled on an Arkansas shopping mall escalator for over an hour
• In other reported incidences Crocs (or knock-offs) were completed sucked off the children’s feet. Now that’s scary.

Crocs not the only risk with children

Feldman continues, "Every year there are over 1000 escalator accidents involving children under the age of 5 and more than 1/2 involve a shoe or body part becoming caught. Accidents in which children's shoes get caught on escalators are entirely preventable. The metal plates at each escalator landing under which the moving steps exit and enter are called combplates. There are a number of ways that the distance between the combplate and moving step can become too large allowing a shoe to ge caught and an injury to occur, or the teeth on the combplates can break which allows shoes to get caught. Escalators pose dangers if not properly maintained because the passengers are always close to the moving parts. Statistically there are many more accidents involving escalators than elevators because passengers on elevators are always close to moving parts."

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According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, about 10,000 people a year go to the emergency room after accidents on escalators. Around 20 percent of escalator injuries have included hands, feet, or shoes trapped. Each state has its own escalator safety code regulations, some state regulations are better than others.

If you or your child has experienced an escalator injury, please contact a premises liability or personal injury lawyer at Anapol Schwartz, a leading Pennsylvania law firm. Anapol Schwartz offers confidential free legal consultations.

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