Girl’s Foot Torn Apart on Macy’s Escalator

by Cassy Fiano | October 7, 2014 3:34 pm

We live in an overly litigious society where greedy idiots look for ways they can make a quick buck off of a misfortune they invented or exaggerated. This story, however, is a reminder that sometimes, these lawsuits are completely warranted.

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A New Jersey family is suing mega-retailer Macy’s Inc., as well as escalator operator ThyssenKrupp Elevator America Inc., after their daughter lost her toes and part of her foot in one of Macy’s escalators.

The incident, which happened on August 16 of last year, occurred at the Macy’s at the Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, New Jersey.

The victim, then 10, was riding the escalator to an upper floor on a pre-school shopping trip when her right foot became trapped in one of the store’s escalators as her mother and little brother “looked on in helpless horror,” according to a lawsuit filed by the victim’s family.

The girl screamed and cried for her mother’s help as more of her foot, then her lower leg, became trapped in the escalator. “Copious amounts of [the victim’s] blood and tissue were distributed over at least 11 steps as the escalator continued grinding up against [the victim’s] trapped foot and leg,” the lawsuit states.

A male passerby eventually stopped the escalator using the emergency stop switch and then began to remove metal plates from the escalator with the help of another passerby. The victim’s leg was trapped about halfway between her right ankle and knee when police and emergency personnel arrived, according to the complaint.

Doctors were unable to save the girl’s badly-mutilated pinky and second toes, and as of last October, the victim had undergone a series of 13 surgeries in an effort to save her foot and leg, the document says.

The girl was wearing Converse high top sneakers that were laced and tied at the time of the incident, the suit states.

The pain and terror that girl must have gone through when this happened is just beyond imagining. She and her family will likely have medical bills to pay off for the rest of her life, thanks to her numerous surgeries and the physical therapy she will undoubtedly have to go through. This is a lawsuit that is well-deserved.