A woman in Jingzhou, China, was killed Sunday when she fell inside an escalator.
The incident, which was captured on security camera footage, took place inside AZG Mall, where Xiang Liujuan was shopping with her son. In the hard-to-watch video, which we’ve purposefully not included in this post, they can be seen riding the escalator when 30-year-old Xiang lifts her young child to prepare to step off. That’s when a panel beneath her caves in.
“Struggling with only her upper body above the structure, the mother is seen pushing her son forward. The boy is quickly pulled to safety by a mall employee standing near the top of the escalator. Two other mall employees try to drag the trapped woman out — but within a few seconds she disappears through the hole, into the escalator shaft. “
Four hours later, firefighters cut the escalator open and removed her body.
According to CNN, China’s state media is reporting that “workers forgot to screw down the panel after maintaining the escalator between the sixth and seventh floors.” In a blog post, Xiang’s sister-in-law wrote, “Facing the disappearance of a lively human being, our whole family is shocked and unable to react. We don’t know how to save all the proof about my brother’s wife’s suffering, so what we can do is to count on the media to record what happened.”
(Via CNN)