Dear mommies, I put a post on the mommy club but in case any of you is not on it I'm also putting it here to share with you.
Last week, my 3-year-old daughter's foot got caught by the escalator midway going up at Emporium and it was the scariest thing. She was standing next to me and we were holding hands. All of a sudden she started screaming and I looked down, her shoe was cut in half! My heart almost stopped beating, but managed to take the shoe off her to see she still has her five toes intact. To my greatest regret my eyes were not on her feet so I didn't see what exactly happened, i.e. where her foot went, but the only guess would be it got too close to the yellow line on the side. I took her to the hospital for a check up immediately and her foot was not injured, only had some abrasion, but the shock was tremendous and she couldn't stop crying. I only have myself to blame for not watching her carefully enough. I cannot stop thinking what could have happened and I can only feel thankful that nothing more serious happened. She was wearing crocs that are know to have soft soles. The security manager at Emporium told me their escalators have sensors to detect and stop automatically once something gets stuck in it but in this case, he said the crocs are simply too soft for the sensor to detect. I believe more than anything else the riding position matters the most. However, for children of this age, who constantly move and fidget, hard sole shoes are probably safer for escalator rides. Please use my experience as a lesson and watch your child/ren to step on/off the escalator and stand in the middle during the ride.