After last weeks show I received the e-mail below from an industry friend who is concerned about escalator accidents, especially the one that happened at the Triangle Town Mall. With his permission to republish it I felt that this was the best way to reach as many people as possible in hopes of preventing accidents such as this from happening in the future.
I’m thankful that industry experts such as Helmut Meuris is doing his part in sharing the important information that he has learned from his work with escalator accidents.
If you have any questions or comments I encourage you to contact Helmut for additional information.
e-mail from Helmut Meuris – 11/4/2009
Girl falls from escalator at Triangle Town Center Mall
Hi Tom,
Relative to the above, I was in the business of lifts and escalators for some 40 years before I was asked to act as an expert witness in an event similar to the above. It was not until this time that it became obvious to me there is a problem at the top end of down escalators.
What occasionally occurs is someone faces in the direction of the void adjacent to the escalator and, due to a crowded situation, is forced against the outside edge of the escalator handrail which is moving in the direction towards the edge protection guard around the atrium.
When contacting the outer edge of said handrail, one is propelled towards the void and depending on the pressure between handrail and body and the height of the fixed guarding, (Required to be a minimum 1000mm in this country (Australia)) as well as the gap between the escalator and the fixed guarding, there can be sufficient momentum generated to throw someone over the guard.
The friction generated between a handrail and someone’s body can be considerable and in fact lethal in as much as it can be instrumental in toppling them over the guarding. Something I did not give any credence to until investigating the fatality that took place here.
On a different location a near-miss was also recorded on a security camera as well clearly showing the above. In this instance the woman was prevented from falling by having her ankle caught. Yes it was the entrapment of her ankle that saved her life.
I did discuss this at the ISO WG5 level however am not sure if the US representatives took it on board.
I am sure the Escalator Safety people would be most interested in this one.
Best regards Helmut Meuris 53 Torwood Ave. Glen Waverley Vic. Australia 3150 Phone: (61)(03) 9574 8090Fax: (61)(03) 8502 0684
Hi. I just want to share a horrible experience my wife had involving an escalator deflector brush. A deflector brush is a long continuous brush made of stiff bristles running up the sides of the escalator just above the step level. This is designed supposedly to help deflect garments, shoes, and other items away from the gap between the moving steps and the skirt board. However, the opposite happened in our case. We were on our way down from one level to the next using an escalator when all of a sudden the child in front of us lost his balance and fell down. I could see that the child’s footwear (looking like a rubber clog) and his right foot was somehow stuck somewhere near the skirt board. I tried to help the child to get up but all of a sudden my wife, who was standing behind me on the escalator, screamed in pain and when I turned around, to my shock and horror I saw that her right foot was trapped between the deflector brush and the skirt board!!! The deflector brush had come loose from the side skirt forming an “V” opening where my wife’s right foot was wedged tightly. All the while, the escalator was descending and my wife naturally was moving down the same direction while her right foot remained firmly stuck at the point where the loosened end of the deflector brush was still attached to the skirt board. This motion twisted her ankle while the metallic part of the deflector brush and the screws used to fasten it to the skirt board was cutting through her flesh like a knife slicing with each agonizing movement!
At the last moment, I firmly grabbed the loose-end of the deflector brush and yanked hard until it broke up! Needless to say, my wife suffered multiple lacerations on her right lower leg and a sprained right ankle. Miraculously, the child only suffered minor scratches but there was a pinch mark on his right rubber clog. I am not saying that the clog has something to do with it but I have heard a lot of similar stories already.