Here's what to do if you find yourself speeding down a broken escalator.
Terrified hockey fans went flying off a malfunctioning escalator inside Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center following a Flyers game on Sunday afternoon.
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The shocking incident shows people crashing into each other at the bottom of an escalator that suddenly sped up.
Fan Meghan McGreevy caught the accident on her cell phone and posted it on Facebook.
“We happen to pass by this escalator carrying a bunch of people and all of a sudden we heard it rev up going faster and faster,” she told IE. “A lot of people were just jumping over the edge of the escalator. There were people just piling on each other at the end. It was pretty crazy.”
According to the New York Daily News, no serious injuries were reported, and the escalator was fixed before a Rihanna concert that night.
Each year thousands of people are injured riding escalators.
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At a Washington D.C. metro station, an escalator also suddenly sped up, sending travelers tumbling down in 2012.
In 2015, a woman in China was riding an escalator with her son lost her life after a metal panel collapsed under her feet and she fell into gap in the device.
It's not just malfunctioning escalators that cause injuries; many times people will lose their balance, causing them to fall.
Other injures happen when clothes get caught inside the escalator, like shoes or strings dangling off sneakers and sweatshirts,
Patrick Carrajat is an escalator safety expert, he told IE: "We are talking about a lot of equipment moving at high speeds with a tremendous amount of thrust. It is estimated that the thrust of an escalator can be just as much as jet plane taking off."
Carrajat also said that escalators are not as safe as elevators. He said: "elevators are much safer."
There's not much you can do if you’re on an out of control escalator, but if you happen to witness one, you can press the emergency stop button located at the bottom and top of each escalator.
A spokesperson for the Wells Fargo Center stadium said in a statement: “The comfort and safety of our guests is our number one concern. Immediately following (the) game an incident did occur involving one of our escalators. We immediately closed it down to protect our patrons and notified the operator. We are working with the operator on investigating this incident.”
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