SINGAPORE: A father took to social media to warn others, particularly parents, after a frightening incident when his daughter’s shoe got caught in an escalator at Thomson Plaza. Fortunately, she was unharmed.
On the popular COMPLAINT SINGAPORE group Facebook page on Sunday (Feb 16), Wong Jason explained that he was not posting a complaint, but he did, however, want to warn others about what happened.
Mr Wong wrote that he believed such an incident would never happen to his child.
While they were on an escalator at Thomson Plaza, where they had just had dinner, his daughter suddenly yelled that her shoe had got stuck. The quick-thinking father then took his daughter’s shoe off right away and pressed the button to activate the escalator’s emergency stop function.
“We were lucky we had time to take her shoes off. If it got stuck for a second, I can’t imagine what the consequences would be. Everyone needs to be careful, especially if you have kids,” wrote Mr Wong, who also added a video and two photos along with his post.
In the video, it can be clearly seen that the front part of a black rubber sandal, near the space where a person’s toes rest, was torn almost completely from the sole of the shoe.
The pictures show that part getting stuck between the moving parts of the escalator.
The Independent Singapore reached out to Mr Wong, who told us that his nine-year-old daughter is fine, though she had initially cried from the shock of the incident. TISG has also sought a comment from Thomson Plaza.
“You really have to be very careful when using these facilities, especially if you have children. Because children are always more active, accidents often happen when you are not paying attention for a moment,” Mr Wong said. He stressed the importance of putting up signs near escalators for parents to be mindful of where their children step, especially if their shoelaces are untied or if they’re wearing certain types of shoes.
It is not unknown for shoes to get stuck in escalators, especially Crocs, which are made of foam and are popular with younger children and their parents because they are easy to put on and are non-slip.
In September 2023, an Australian news site reported that Crocs had been banned from some airports, train stations, and shopping centres after a series of worrying incidents occurred involving the shoe. Signs were posted on escalators banning the shoe, which can get sucked into and caught on the moving stairs’ mechanism.
A four-year-old girl from Sydney nearly lost her foot after it got caught in an elevator at the airport.
In 2019, the SCDF called in after a little boy’s foot got stuck in the escalator at Jewel Changi. In May of the previous year, a five-year-old boy sustained a cut on his toe after the slipper he was wearing got stuck in an escalator. /TISG
Read also: Boy’s Crocs-type sandal gets his foot stuck in Jurong Point escalator