A domestic helper barely escaped severe injuries after she managed to leap off an escalator just seconds before its steps collapsed.
STOMP reported that the escalator at The Centrepoint shopping mall malfunctioned yesterday at 2:05pm, causing the 25-year-old woman to suffer a minor scratch from the accident. She was with her employer — 39-year-old Tran Huo Minh — and his four-year-old daughter, and had been taking the escalator down when the incident happened.
Tran first heard “an incredible crunching sound” after he and his daughter had alighted from the escalator. Immediately, he yelled at the maid to jump off, and it was lucky that she did — seconds later, the step she was standing on buckled inwards. She suffered minor injuries and is said to be shaken by the incident.
A spokesman for the shopping mall confirmed that the escalator located at basement one indeed broke down yesterday, and the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has since been notified. Escalator vendor OTIS is said to be investigating the incident with BCA’s engineers. According to BCA, the escalator will only be allowed to run again after rectification works are completed to their standards.
Escalators swallowing up people have been the stuff of nightmares ever since the time when a woman was killed in front of her toddler after plunging through the flooring of one in a Chinese department store.
