Mother dies saving son in horror accident
Print Edition
A MOTHER died after being trapped in a shopping mall escalator, but not before pushing her 2-year-old son to safety.
The horrific accident in Jingzhou, a city in central China’s Hubei Province was caught on camera.
Xiang Liujuan, 30, was holding her son in front of her as they went up the escalator on Saturday, the Wuhan Evening News reported.
Security camera footage of the incident posted online showed a panel in the floor giving way as Xiang stepped off the escalator. As she fell through, she pushed her son forward, and a shop assistant nearby dragged him to safety.
But the escalator continued rolling, and several seconds later Xiang is seen disappearing into the mechanism, despite one staff member briefly grabbing her hand.
It took firefighters more than four hours to cut open the machine and recover the woman’s lifeless body, the newspaper report said.
The footage showed employees standing at the top of the escalator as the mother and child approached.
Maintenance had just been carried out on the escalator at the Anliang department store, and workers had forgotten to screw the access cover back in place, the newspaper reported, quoting an unnamed source.
The accident was one of the hottest topics on China’s Internet with more than 6.6 million views on Sina Weibo alone.
Most comments expressed anger at mall management.
“Why didn’t the staff stop customers at the entrance to the machine or just turn it off?” was one comment. “The department store is definitely responsible.”
Others were moved by the woman’s final actions.
“I was appalled when I saw her sink and at the same time felt the greatness of maternal love — the mother wasted no time pushing the child out when it happened,” was another comment.
In 2012, a 9-year-old boy died after he got stuck in an escalator at a Beijing department store as horrified shoppers looked on.
In July 2011, a 13-year-old boy was killed and more than 20 others injured when an escalator in a Beijing underground station suddenly reversed direction.
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