In todays safe family report millions of people ride them every day, but the number of people being injured on escalators every year is on the rise.
6 year old Madeline Dahm was just a toddler when a horrifying accident changed her life. She was with her dad, riding the escalator at a mall in Minneapolis, when suddenly her foot was sucked into the space between the step and the side panel. Madeline's sandal was shredded, 4 of her toes were crushed, and the tendons along the top of her foot were severed.
The consumer product safety commission estimates in 2008 11,000 people were injured and treated in emergency rooms because of escalator related accidents. Nearly a quarter of them were children.
Currently there are no federal regulations mandating escalators be inspected, it's left to states, towns and local municipalities.
One of the biggest hazards on an escalator is where the moving steps meet the side. If you can fit more than the tip of a pencil in that space--the gap is too big.
As for Madeline Dahm, Doctors managed to save her foot, but she still faces more surgery.