KOCHI: The death of three-year old Krishna Kamath on Monday drives home an often forgotten fact - we take many things for granted where the safety of children is concerned. Krishna met with his death after a fall from an escalator in a shopping centre in the city.
As we proudly count the number of malls coming up in Kochi as an indicator of the city’s metro status, it is high time we changed our callous attitude regarding safety and security measures to prevent such accidents in future. Every year there are over 1000 escalator accidents involving children under the age of 5 all over the world and more than 1/2 involve a shoe or body part getting caught. While stepping off an escalator may be a simple and natural task to an adult, it is not the same for children.
Last month the Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi witnessed three-year-old Shehsha’s hand getting stuck in an escalator.
She had gone to play on the stairs while her mother was busy at the counter. And it brought back memories of a death at the same place - that of seven-year-old Jyotsna Jethani who was caught in a moving escalator in 1999 as she was coming down.
Not many of us know that escalators can be deadly. The hem of a skirt or a shoe caught between the metal sheets can topple anyone, children more so. And we let the children play on them, going up and down or jumping stairs, as we lose ourselves in shopping. Young children may remain standing on the escalator and allow their feet to slide off at the end, instead of actually stepping off. The small size of a child’s foot might increase the risk of it slipping into the gap where the last step slides into the comb plate. In addition to feet becoming entrapped during the process of stepping off, children’s small extremities may become lodged between two steps or between a step and the siderail.
Most escalators are sensor-operated and start the moment the feet touch it. It can jolt children as they climb on it, assuming it to be a stationary flight of stairs. And its abrupt movement can make them lose their balance. Since it is made of heavy metal, a fall can be fatal for children.
There have been many incidents in which children lost their fingers or toes when their hands or legs were caught between the moving metal sheets with sharp edges.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the US, about 10,000 people a year go to the emergency room after accidents on escalators.
Around 20 percent of escalator injuries have involved trapped hands, feet, or shoes.
But how many of us have bothered to check whether there is an emergency button to bring the escalator to a stand still if there is an accident? The public and parents need to be more aware about escalator safety to prevent accidents in future.
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