Emotional Witness Recalls “Scary” Union Station Escalator Accident That Sent Eight To Hospital
Posted November 9, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
As she and dozens of other passengers were descending into the GO Train area, a person fell on the moving stairwell, creating a chain reaction accident that caused those waiting to get off to jam into each other, and left one woman in serious condition and several others nursing neck and back injuries.
It happened at the height of rush hour, just after 7:30am.
The cause of the incident still isn’t clear, but Cindy remembers the device started going faster.
“We were about halfway down, and all of a sudden it just started going warp speed,” she recalls. “The alarm bell went, which is normally what it does when it stops, and all of a sudden it just started going faster and faster and people were piling on top of each other …
” It was going at least three to five times its normal speed.”
The tears come as she describes what happened next.
“I tried to help my girlfriend that was in front of me and my girlfriend that was under me by clearing a man off of them.”
Two of Cindy’s friends were sent to hospital. One was seriously hurt in the incident when a large man fell on top of her. She remains in St. Michael’s Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit with spinal injuries.
“There was a lot of screaming, and that’s about all I can say,” she pauses, before adding, “Scary. Very, very scary.”
Six others were also taken to various ERs so they could be checked out. More were treated at the scene.
“We’re unsure (of the cause),” admits Graham Munroe of Toronto EMS. “Apparently the escalator that these people were on started to speed up and resulted in a large group of people being thrown at the base of the escalator into a large pile, basically, where people sustained injuries.”
Witnesses say people tried to stop the haywire device, but it all happened so fast, no one thought to lift the plastic cover and hit the emergency button.
Police closed off Bay St. at Front St. for a time so that emergency vehicles could get access to the station.
The Ministry of Labour is looking into the incident and confirms it will be several days before a cause can be determined.
For Cindy, they will be days filled with remorse and regret.
“I’d much rather it be me,” she concludes.
