Security guards in SM City Cebu cover the base of the escalator with black cloth while technicians work behind the panels to extricate a boy whose foot got stuck Saturday evening. A stretcher is prepared to take the boy to an ambulance. (CDN PHOTO APPLE MAE TA-AS)
A BOY’s foot got stuck in an escalator as it descended to the lobby of the SM Northwing in Cebu City about 6:45 p.m. last night.
A crowd watched as technicians and mall personnel took nearly an hour to extricate the boy’s foot behind panels of black cloth quickly draped around the accident site.
The child was going down the escalator with his grandfather standing in front and his grandmother behind him, when the accident happened, according to witnesses.
Cebu Daily News was present when the boy, who looked less than 10 years old, was still being rescued . He was placed on a stretcher and brought to an ambulance. He wore long pants but his left foot no longer had a rubber shoe on, like his right.
As of 9:30 p.m., senior public relataions manager RJ Leduna of SM Supermalls, said the child was in stable condition at a private hospital and that there was no sign of fracture based on an X-ray examination.
One mallgoer told CDN he was watching a musical performance at the lobby a few meters from the base of the escalator, when an unusual mechanical sound made him turn.
He said he saw the boy on the escalator holding on to his foot in pain.
The escalator automatically stopped a few seconds after, he said.
“Pagkakita nako dali jud ko nga niduol. Mga unom or pito tingali mi ka tawo ang nagtabang ato paggunit sa handle sa escalator aron di makaon samot ang tiil sa bata. Mga seconds kay ni-automatic ra pod og hunong og dagan ang escalator,”said the witness, who asked to keep his name off the record.
(When I saw what happened, I hurried to the site. There were six to seven of us trying to stop the escalator by holding the railings to spare the boy’s foot. Seconds after, the escalator automatically stopped),” he told CDN.
He said security guards and technicians arrived to help in about five minutes.
The boy’s left foot was inserted almost halfway in the elevator panel, said the witness. Some mall goers took photos and videos with their cameraphones only to be shooed away by security guards.
Paramedics from the Emergency Response Unit Foundation (ERUF) arrived soon after with a stretcher.
“Nagsyagit man to ang bata…, nagsige og hilak,” said the witness.
(The boy shouted and kept crying.)
Before rescuers arrived, the grandfather tried to pull out the child’s foot from the escalator but others who gathered to help stopped him, saying it may worsen the boy’s condition.