This is the moment a boy playing at the bottom of an escalator feeds his rubber ball into the machine’s handrail belt shortly before it sucks in his entire right hand.
The accident happened at the Jimailong Supermarket in Jingliang, a county in coastal Taizhou City in East China’s Jiangsu Province, on 7th September.
Video credit: AsiaWire
CCTV images released by the Taizhou fire service shows the young boy, whose name and age have not been disclosed, playing unsupervised at the bottom of the descending moving walkway.
He takes his red rubber ball and inserts it into the handrail conveyor belt mechanism, which sucks the small toy into its metal and plastic housing together with his entire right hand.
In the video, the boy begins to panic and tries in vain to pull his hand out while another shopper runs over to try and help him.
As the escalator’s fail-safe kicks in and stops the walkway, neither the boy nor the adult is able to free his trapped right hand.
Members of the Taizhou fire service who were later called to the supermarket are seen using a lengthy crowbar to prise apart the escalator handrail housing.
They freed the boy in a matter of minutes, with the child fortunately not suffering any serious injuries to his hand.
He is not believed to have required hospital treatment.
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Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
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