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ACCIDENT

Second woman stuck in Stockholm escalator

A woman was rushed to hospital after her foot got caught in a damaged escalator at a Stockholm subway stop. Hers is the second high profile accident of its kind in 2015.

Published: 10 September 2015 16:11 CEST

Second woman stuck in Stockholm escalator

The escalator was closed for the day following the accident. Photo: TT

The woman got hurt at Universitetet subway station in northern Stockholm during the morning rush hour, as her foot became stuck in one of the stairs.

A picture published in the Aftonbladet newspaper appears to show that the accident occurred at the top of the escalator.

“I think her foot went all the way in,” one witness told the paper.

“There were a few of us who helped pull her out and then we called the ambulance immediately. She was really screaming and looked to be in a lot of pain.”

The extent of the woman's injuries remain unknown.

Photo: TT

Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) which operates Stockholm's subway, closed down the escalator, and are yet to reveal exactly what went wrong.

“It's unfortunate that someone had hurt themselves like this…and we are trying to ind out exactly what happened,” SL spokesman Christoffer Hoffmann told the TT news agency.

“But after the accident earlier this year we have tightened our routines when it comes to the escalators.”

In February, a 70-year-old woman was seriously injured after a similar fall, this time at the Östermalmstorg stop. She was trapped for 90 minutes with what turned out to be a broken leg.

Almost 40 escalators were then closed down across the Swedish capital while staff carried out investigations and maintenance work.

Thursday's accident comes after promises from SL that the Stockholm escalators were fixed.

“Our manufacturers have installed beams with special sensors under all the steps. So if one step comes off, like when the accident happened, it cannot fall down. It stops after a couple of millimetres and pushes the ledge so that the escalator stops immediately,” Suss Forssman Thullberg, communications director of SL, told Swedish Radio in March.

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

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Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.

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