BEIJING: A family in eastern China has accused a mall of negligence after a two-year-old boy had two of his fingers severed on an escalator at the mall in early February.
According to Beijing Evening News, the accident took place at 5.30pm on Feb 2 at Xingmei City Plaza in Suining county in the province of Jiangsu.
In a video released by the mall on Monday (Feb 10), the boy, who is wearing an orange coat, can be seen with a woman at the bottom of a downward-moving escalator.
He approaches the escalator but falls on the moving steps.
In a panic, the woman immediately picks him up, only to realise his right hand is bleeding profusely.
Another woman in a white coat quickly looks for the emergency stop button at the side of the escalator and slams it.
The boy was taken to a hospital immediately, local media reported.
The mall said the escalator technicians arrived at the scene at 5.40pm and began to dismantle the machine to look for the severed digits.
According to the mall, the workers found the two fingers one after the other in about 25 minutes and rushed them to the hospital in ice packs.
Following the incident, the toddler’s family said on social media Weibo on Feb 10 that his fingers were sliced off due to a sudden malfunction of the escalator and accused the mall of negligence in managing the machine.
Later, in response to a comment on Weibo, the family said the two fingers could not be reattached to the child’s hand as they had been severely contaminated by the dirty condition of the escalator.
Xingmei City Plaza denied the claims.
“The child was injured here, but it was not due to escalator malfunction. Our escalator was working fine,” a management personnel told the media.
The mall said it had offered the boy’s family 20,000 yuan (S$3,700) out of compassion, but the sum was turned down by the family who reportedly demanded 60,000 yuan.
According to Chinese media Yangguang Bao, a police investigation is under way. - The Straits Times/ANN
