Waterway Point Escalator Steps Suddenly Dislodged; No One Seriously Injured

It was not too long ago that a hero saved a boy from an escalator accident.

The boy had fallen over the escalator and Mr Mohamed Ferdaus Mohamed Yusoff, an SBS senior assistant station manager, grabbed him and brought him to safety, just like a scene from a Marvel movie.

The lesson here is simple: don’t pray pray at the escalator because it’s essentially a machine that can kill.

But what if you didn’t pray pray, and the machine broke down by itself?

That’s what happened to an escalator in a mall that’s less than four years old.

Waterway Point Escalator Steps Suddenly Dislodged

Yesterday (29 September 2019) late morning, something bigly happened in Punggol, and it’s not a new BTO.

It’s this:

Yes, an escalator that’s going down suddenly dislodged at the end of the track.

According to an eyewitness, people screamed when that happened.

I’m 101% sure if not for the screaming, people would be injured since everyone’s glued to their phone to read the Goody Feed app and wouldn’t have known about the incident.

Another eyewitness posted her account on Facebook and it has since garnered well over 1.7K shares:

This is what she has written (less the hashtags) and the images she took:

Guys please be careful on the escalator especially those with young children or older folks with you. This just happened at waterway point. Ppl on the escalator were sent tumbling.

A near miss for me since I was two steps away from getting on it. Praise God He kept angels around me.

To be fair, the security was very quick. Less than 5 mins, they were on the scene and directing traffic away. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt.

Oh yeah, people were “sent tumbling”.

However, both eyewitnesses mentioned that there were no injuries, so thank God for that. And kudos to the security staff that handled the incidentally swiftly and professionally.

Waterway Point, which is located next to Punggol MRT Station, hasn’t made a statement yet.

Lest you’re not aware, the mall is usually very crowded, and it’s connected to the Punggol Waterway Park. The mall was officially opened in April 2016.

More Than 350 Escalator Incidents in 2018

Last year, there were over 350 reported escalator incidents, and over 90% are caused by user behaviour—you know, like the boy who was saved by Captain Singapore.

That means 10% were caused by technical faults… like this incident.

Earlier this year, there was a rather similar incident in Tampines 1, though instead of the steps being dislodged, the tiles in front of the steps kind of gave way and led to the steps getting struck, too. Thankfully, no one was injured, too.

Moral of the story?

Don’t be a zombie to your phone when you’re on an escalator. Even if the mall is relatively new.