We went to the Rockies game tonight. I was thinking of different things to blog about the game but then as we were leaving we saw something take place. We think some part of an escalator detached and caused the steps to flatten or something. We heard a few girls scream but you know how it is at stuff like that; girls make noise. Then the screaming increased and we were walking past the open gate by this dowm escalator. People were grasping for the sides and just tumbling and sliding to the bottom. My first thought was that the escalator had sped up to about 2-3 times its usual speed. And no one at the bottom was moving.
A couple of teen girls were pulled out from the bottom in a minute or so. I didn’t see anything so I can’t tell you if they were hurt. Hawk and I paused at the gate. It was just this helpless feeling and I said, “Go see.” B/c when Hawk comes across anything remotely like that, he tries to help.
Well all the lookie-loos who ran to the escalator were not only blocking the way for people to get off the thing, if that was possible, but Hawk couldn’t get anywhere near to see if help was needed. Most of the lookie-loos were just standing around. One guy came out from the stadium (I stayed on the outside of the gate) yelling for a phone. That was useful. Props to him. But there was no one from the stadium around as far as security, etc. And others were obviously trying to get in to help and couldn’t.
Lesson #1: Always hold the handrail on escalators
Lesson #2: If you aren’t involved in an accident, get out of the fucking way
If there’s a link anywhere, I’ll add it later.
later
Breaking news piece at Channel 7.
Breaking news piece at Denver Post.
Should have more detail tomorrow. Seems it did speed up after all.
Escalator update
Seems last night’s accident made national newswires. I’m not surprised; it was such a freakish thing.
Here’s the game-related story via Yahoo.
I just saw part of a news conference on TV and they weren’t sure what caused it. A guy said that people stand at both ends of the escalator and say “one at a time” and “hold on.” Well I can tell you from what I saw that it was definitely not one at a time. I have a theory that the weight (ie: sheer volume of people) is what started it. It could also have been the heat. According to the thermometer in our car, it was 96 degrees at 10:30 when we left the parking lot. It was around 100-110 degrees all the drive down and in downtown, and gametime was 6 p.m.
Anyway, from what I saw, it was definitely mechanical but people were already packed on there like sardines before they started piling up at the bottom. I wouldn’t be surprised if they found out the momentum increased b/c of the weight.
I’ll say this: Colorado has definitely not been boring so far 
