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Carnage On The Escalators

A

Anonymous

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I remember hearing varies legends of poor folk getting bits of clothing caught in the lip at the bottom of the esculators and being torn apart in front of all the merry shoppers with their blood splattered asda bags-Any truth readers? :eek!!!!:
 
Dunno about escalators, but any of the (mysteriously numerous) Sheffield posters hereabouts will surely know of the Patenoster at Sheffield University. It's a kind of endlessly moving open lift, lacking doors - a series of platforms moving constantly up and down the ginormous (for Sheffield) Arts tower.

Stories are rife of students who got their flapping jumper sleeves caught as it reached the top, were flipped over and jettisoned down the shaft. Either that, or they fell asleep in a drunken stupor.

(LEGAL WARNING - *it isn't true*).
 
I've gotten shoelaces stuck in there a number of times, but they came right out with a swift tug. Getting REALLY stuck would at worst result in some minor scrapes and bruises, as they've got adequate safety features to prevent shopping mall carnage. What scares me about escalators is the evil green alien lights coming from beneath...
 
It was certainly taken seriously, as I vaguely remember a public information film from the 70s (one of those ones that seemed to serve no other purpose than to scare the crap out of small children) about the dangers of escalators.

I think it showed a little girl's rag doll getting caught, the inference being that it could just have easily have been the girl getting mangled in the thing. Anyone else remember this? Was there a spate of bizarre escalator deaths in the early 70s which led to the powers that be deciding to warn us about the devilish contraptions?
 
I think I recall some of those public information films/adverts about keeping away from the edge of the escalator (keep behind the yellow line) - wayyyy back in the 80's. In one of these films they'd put a kiddies shoe in between the stationary and moving bit and show you it getting mangled up. Why the hell the public was exposed to such an obvious danger is beyond me. I can only assume some kind of solution was found shortly after.
 
Escaltors can't be so dangerous... however that little shoe did get mangled pretty badly all those years ago...

I don't know the dangerous moving lifts in Sheffield Uni, I'm afraid - sounds like exactly the wrong thing to give students to use!
 
On the subject of those "don't fly your kite near pylons" films of the 70's and 80's.
They were available on video for a while. One video of the 'Charley Says' and one of the live action "don't throw your frisbie into a electric sub-station" type.

I grew up in the country and the police came round to my primary school and showed us this truely scarey film af 7 children dieing on farms. Including drowning slurry.

All that when you're 6. And all live on or near farms. Fantasic we didn't sleep for weeks.
 
The 'Charlie' adverts were fantastic!

One which I am never sure if I'm remembering correctly, was the 'Always tell your mummy before going out with your friends' adverts.

As I recall, some friends call on the kid and he's about to go with them when Charlie has a miaowing fit and the kid decides to tell his mum before going anywhere. This is all well and good, but as I remember it, his mum is down the garden and it takes so long to get there, that when he comes back to the door his friends have gone.

Does anyone else remember that advert, or am I getting it all wrong?
 
No, Beast- that's pretty much it. The message i took away from it is if you want to play with your friends, dont tell your parents or your mates will bugger off.
As for the pub. info. farm film- i got shown that one too. If it involves some kids drinking Diesel in a barn and dying, some other kid driving a tractor (i cant quite remember if he drives it off a cliff or he gets squished under it) and that poor bastard drowning in pigshit.
It was scarier than any film i had seen at that time.
Ross
 
Johnnyboy said:
it showed a little girl's rag doll getting caught, the inference being that it could just have easily have been the girl getting mangled in the thing.
Click to expand...

I remember those films - they scared the hell out of me at the time.
I lived in London when I was little and I was already frightened of the tube train doors, and those old ticket barriers like big black pinball flippers that were just the right height to smack a toddler in the face.
 
Carnage

A friend of mine was shopping in Leeds and saw a woman get her stilletto heel caught in the escalator in a shopping centre, who was then thrown down onto the marble floor, hit her head and was killed instantly!

I can't remember the detail of wether she was at the top or bottom of the escalator though.

This was about 4 years ago I think, my friend still has the image running through her mind (not surprisingly), just can't get over how a simple visit to the shops could end like that for the poor woman.

Get yer sensible shoes on lasses!!

Lily:(
 
Re: Carnage

Originally posted by lily lodestone

A friend of mine was shopping in Leeds and saw a woman get her stilletto heel caught in the escalator in a shopping centre, who was then thrown down onto the marble floor, hit her head and was killed instantly!
Click to expand...


Just been talking to my Mum on the phone, and mentioned this thread to her. She says that she once got the heel of her shoe caught in a London Tube escalator in the 60s, and had it snapped off. Looks like she had a narrow escape :eek!!!!:
 
Scary stuff jonnyboy!

Just remembered a colleague who I was working with for a while -she was terrified of all escalators, which was a nightmare for travelling in London obviously.
When I asked her why, she said it was all to do with this film she'd seen as a child, showing a rag doll being mangled in an escalator......

Did the government realise that its public information films were going to be creating problems for otherwise sensible 30-something business women in years to come !!!???

:confused:

Lily
 
One thing I found really scary was the paternoster lift we had at our university when I was a student. Especially the bit where it used to go round at the top or bottom and it was pitch black. There were plenty of horror stories told about it . . .

Carole
 
Sounds quite romantic to me.

(variation on the "stuck-in-a-lift" fantasy. sorry)
 
I remember 'Thats life' doing a thing about lifts with no internal door resulting in unwary individuals having various limbs ripped off. I've never seen one in Britain so I would guess they are illegal now but they are rife in Europe.
Perhaps Europeans have more common sense than the British or maybe they just refuse to be nannied or subscribe to the blame culture we have in this country. Notice electricty pylons in Europe. No reams of barbed wire around the bottom. If you want to climb it then go ahead but don't blame us when you die a horrible death.
Responsibility for your own actions? Nah, it's always somebody else's fault.
 
Why would you put barbed wire on electricity pylons? If somebody wants to climb them, give them a Darwin award instead.
 
Ok

I might be being a bit dim but what is a paternoster lift?

Is it the ones that are open and keep moving, you just jump on and off o the floor you want?
 
Agree with you totally Xanatic, unfortunatly in Britain if someone has an accident whilst trespassing, say for instance on a pylon, then the owner of the pylon risks major legal problems as they didn't make the structure secure, hence the bard wire. Like I said, personal responsibility does not exist.
I would also guess that a paternoster lift is exactly what you described, livinabin. I believe they still have one at the college of food in the middle of Birmingham or at least they did 10 years ago.
 
liveinabin said:
Ok

I might be being a bit dim but what is a paternoster lift?

Is it the ones that are open and keep moving, you just jump on and off o the floor you want?
Click to expand...

Right first time, 'Bin! They're quite fun apart from the dark bits at the top and bottom!

Carole
 
Re: Carnage

Originally posted by lily lodestone
Get yer sensible shoes on lasses!!
Click to expand...

Got 'em.

I've never understood those Medieval torture devices so many women inflict on their poor feet. Then again, I've never understod toenail polish, either.

Nonny
 
Might be an UL but someone once told me that the Sheffield Uni crew made a sport of going over the top in the Paternoster.
 
JurekB said:
...Perhaps Europeans have more common sense than the British or maybe they just refuse to be nannied or subscribe to the blame culture we have in this country.....
Responsibility for your own actions? Nah, it's always somebody else's fault.
Click to expand...
Did I ever mention I'd done a bit of sailing? (Cries of BOO! GET OFF!)
I see that nowadays learners at sailing schools wear crash helmets! How are they ever going to learn to duck if they don't get a good crack on the head now and again? If they can be cushioned from that, they won't learn the importance of avoiding accidental gybes, they'll end up worse sailors and eventually get into worse trouble.

Wasn't like that in my day, mumble mumble...
 
There was someone killed in a paternoster lift in Britain in 1976, I remember because I rode the Sheffield one for the first time that year.
These lifts come in 2 types, i.e. 'collapsing when it goes over the top' and 'not collapsing when it goes over the top' . The former is obviously dangerous to ride over the top & bottom in and if that's the Sheffield type then that's where the poor girl died. It was in all the papers, with lurid descriptions of blood-curdling screams and the state of the lift afterwards.
(I apologise in advance to anyone who knew this girl and assure you that I do not find her accident at all amusing.)
 
My old uni had a paternoster lift and going over the top or bottom was quite spooky, but in the mornings when there was a long queue to get on the lift some students would jump onto the descending lift to jump the queue; the revenge from the annoyed crowd was to hit the emergency stop button which sentanced them to a 20 minute wait in the pit at the bottom of the lift.
 
I'm wondering if we should make more use of Darwin awards. Specificly in relation to *joy riders* where Mrs and Mrs Smith want to sue the police because their little Jonny died when he crashed a car at 90 mph after stealing it. (Codded up quote ".. he was a good little boy - never did anyone any harm ...") or when he played on the railway lines, or - a popular one down here - swim on a red flagged beach after having been warned against it by the lifeguards. Oh and don't start me on Tombstoning

In my young day such people would have been flayed, and buried in unsanctified ground. OK, OK so I'm sounding like disgusted of Tunbridge Wells ...
 
In the heyday ofCornish mining, the miners were carried up and down the mine on a Man Engine. Basically this was a very long rod or beam, with platforms attached, which oscillated up and down. To go up, miners would hop on a platform at the bottom of a stroke and get off at the top of a stroke, to wait for the rod to drop again or even transfer to an adjacent man-engine to continue the journey towards 'grass'. (No, not that kind! It means the surface.)

This activity was hazardous enough, but some mine disasters occurred when the rod broke and plunged to the bottom of the mine, killing its passengers and anyone else unlucky enough to be in its path.

Some details of the man-engine (with diagrams)

here

A web search will find more about mining, disasters, etc - there's alot out there
 
Sorry I'm still a bit unsure on how these paternoster lifts work.

When the lifts go over the top do they go upside down or are they hinged like a ferris wheel car?

thanks
 
The one at my old uni used to sort of move sideways once it got to the top/bottom, then moved up/down as appropriate. Needless to say, there was a lot of pratting about associated with them - people who didn't like the dark bit being forced to stay all the way round, etc, maybe that's what happened to that poor girl who was killed. It was quite safe as long as you acted sensibly, but then that applies to most things.

I agree with what people have been saying about the nannying of idiots. If there's a warning sign - 'Danger 10,000 Volts' and some idiot ignores it, that should be his problem, not a matter for litigation. The youngsters nowadays . . .

Oops, I've just fallen off me soap box!

Carole
 
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