Woman dies after scarf, hair get caught in escalator


Recommended Posts

MONTREAL ? A 48-year-old woman died Thursday morning in the Fabre m?tro station after it appears her scarf and then her hair got caught in the teeth of the escalator. She was apparently strangled by her scarf.

The incident, which has been deemed an accident by Montreal police, occurred at 9:15 a.m. at the station on the corner of Jean Talon Street East and Fabre Street in the Villeray district, said Constable Jean-Pierre Brabant.

?The woman?s scarf got caught in the escalator and then she bent down to try to get it out and her hair got stuck, too,? Brabant said. ?A bystander called 911 and by the time police arrived, she was declared dead,? by an Urgences-Sant? paramedic.

?We got a call a little after 9 a.m. that there was a woman found at the bottom of an escalator, trapped, and that there was an article of clothing involved,? said Robert Lamle, a spokesperson with Urgences-Sant?. ?The woman was in cardiac arrest."

?The firefighters, first responders, got there first and began resuscitation efforts. Our technicians arrived and took over but it was not viable and the woman was declared dead,? Lamle said.

There is an emergency stop button at the top and bottom of the escalator, which is the case for all escalators serving the m?tro system. Brabant said he did not know whether anyone pressed the stop button while the woman was struggling. He said a witness, whom police are looking for, used an STM emergency phone to call for help. He asked anyone else who witnessed the incident to call police.

An engineer who has been working on these mechanisms for the Soci?te de Transport Montreal for the past nine years told The Gazette escalators are equipped with safety mechanisms that are supposed to prevent this kind of accident.

more

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read about that last night, I was actually surprised I hadn't read about it before since I know a few people who use that station regularly, including a few coworkers that I talked to yesterday.

 

What I'm wondering is if this happened in the morning, there should have been plenty of traffic at that station, but none of the articles that I've read about this mention anything about anybody trying to help her, just that she was discovered unconscious at the bottom of the escalator, so if there was traffic, did people just walk by her, ignoring her?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What the hell man?  It would have trapped her hair and ripped her scalp off, causing enough pain to trigger a heart attack!

Says she was strangled, but either way, it's unfortunate.  Though what I am wondering is.. was she really short, or did she just have a really long scarf and hair?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very sad. :(

 

Sounds like something out of the Final Destination movies. 0_o

 

That was in Final Destination 4 I believe it was. Except the girl in the movie got pulled into an exposed escalator and got wood chipped pretty much. Maybe.

 

As for this poor woman. Sad to hear about it, hope the family is alright.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.