This is not an IABU, but I wasn’t sure of the best place to post it, and wanted as many people as possible to read it in case it might be useful to them.
I am always paranoid whenever I am near an escalator with my children and I make sure I hold their hand and remind them to be careful, not to play or be silly on it, to hold on properly to the handrail. This is in part due to the stories I have heard about children wearing crocs on escalators, but somehow I just had this idea that the dangerous parts of the escalator were the “teeth” at the bottom or top of the escalator (the comb plate), or in the crack between the steps. What I was unaware of was the danger of the brush and the gap on the sides of the escalator.
Last week some friends came to visit and we arranged to meet them in central London. After a day of visiting a crowded museum and having a late lunch, we decided to go to Hyde Park to watch the Winter Wonderland lights. As we stepped inside the underground station we stopped to look at the map and figure out the best route. We then started to walk in the direction of the escalators. As usual, my first instinct was to grab my children’s hand. Only the youngest was right next to me. The older one (8 years-old) was a bit further ahead as we were a large group, and as we approached the escalator there were already three people between him and me. I saw that DH was one of them, and was in the step right behind DS. I thought it would be okay then, as DS is older now and was standing next to his dad. I thought to myself if just this time I am not next to him reminding him to be careful on the escalator, I’m sure it will be okay.
We started to go down the long escalator and just a few moments later I heard a really loud distressed high pitched scream. At first I didn’t know where it came from, I looked down at the escalator coming up on the other direction or ours expecting to see a woman in trouble but eventually I saw it was coming from someone not far in front of me. My biggest nightmare came true when I realised it was my own son lying on the step with DH sitting next to him hugging him as he continued to cry non-stop. I looked everywhere to see why he was crying and it was then I noticed the escalator had swallowed his whole foot and was dragging DS along as he screamed. It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen. I was so upset that the next things that happened are a blur. People started shouting for help and to stop the escalator. Someone at the bottom pushed one of those red buttons to stop the escalator. Someone from TFL arrived at the scene and said help was on its way. They cleared out the place, and asked me to go and wait in one of the station offices with my youngest son that was frightened and would not stop crying saying that he didn’t want his brother to die.
I waited in the office for what seemed like ages, my thoughts going forward and backward from fearing the worst to praying for a miracle where things could be like it had never happened. The people from TFL and emergency services were amazing. The police was the first to arrive at the scene, and DH told me how they took apart the panels, cut through his boot (he was wearing wellies) and sock, and managed to remove his foot, intact, with all his toes and everything, only bruised and with minor cuts. They said he was a lucky boy.
I later spoke with the TFL staff as I wanted to understand what went wrong. I also tried to google any incidents involving wellies, in case like the crocs, it had been due to DS wearing unsuitable footwear. At the end it turns out it can happen with any kind of shoes, but crocs are worse because they are soft and offer little protection to the feet. In a way it seems it was good his foot was in a welly as the thick rubber protected the foot, and at the same time they were able to cut through it to dislodge the foot. I also asked my son how it happened, if he had been playing and accidentally put his foot through the gap in the brushes. He said he didn’t. At first he had been standing in the middle of the step but someone came down walking on the left side and wanted to pass by so DS moved to the right. Then he crossed his left foot in front of the right one to stand like that and the tip of the left boot must have touched the edge of the skirt panel. It seems that the friction created by this contact drew his foot in the gap by the skirt panel and entrapped it inside. My son said he didn’t put his foot inside the gap, but that he just felt as if something suddenly pulled it inside.
When I tried searching for other incidents involving wellies in escalators I couldn’t find many, most of the accidents reported seem to involve crocs. There was, however, a thread posted by someone on Mumsnet many years ago with a similar incident on an escalator inside an underground station in London that involved a toddler wearing crocs. From reading that thread I saw that many people remember some Public Information Broadcasts from the 80s with a pair of empty wellies travelling on an escalator, but some people had never seen them (myself included, as I grew up in a different country). For those, I hope that reading this helps to raise awareness and decreases the chances of it happening again to another child.