Another horrific case of a child's hand stuck in a China mall escalator

Parents, please keep a close watch on your kid at outings as he might think anywhere is a safe 'playground'.

Despite widespread publicity on escalator accidents trapping the limbs of kids, such preventable accidents continue to occur.

In the latest horrific case, a boy's playful hand was stuck under a descending hand rail of the escalator after he placed his hand on it moments before it dipped. The kid had continued to let the moving rail take his hand down under, not knowing that it would be trapped, subsequently, in a tight spot.

Captured on video, the ordeal at a shopping mall in Kaili city in southwest China, saw a panicky woman, supposedly the child's mother, scrambling to save him.

She cried for help and several shoppers rushed to her aid.

One of them pressed the emergency shutdown button and saved the boy from serious injuries, reported CCTV news which put up the footage online.

Last year, the Chinese authorities reported dozens of escalator deaths and injuries. Such incidents happened in other Asian countries too.

In June last year, a toddler lost his right hand at the wrist after it got caught in an escalator at KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur.

A month later, a three-year-old boy's right hand was mangled when it got stuck in an escalator in Penang.

A more horrific case happened two months earlier in April when a six-year-old girl plunged to her death after she fell through the gap of an escalator on the second floor to the basement, at a mall in Kuala Lumpur.

So parents, please chaperone your kid and not leave him unattended when going out. But take care of yourself too - as escalator accidents have also happened to adults.

chenj@sph.com.sg