Mother sues after toddler injured on mall escalator
BRIDGEPORT — Two years ago, a Norwalk toddler fell on an escalator at the Westfield Trumbull mall severing two of her fingers.
Her mother is now suing the mall and the escalator company.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in state Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages against the mall’s parent company, Westfield America, for what it terms negligence in placing the mall’s play area next to the escalators. The suit also claims the escalator company, KONE Inc., is negligent for producing a defective piece of equipment that creates a risk of injury to children.
“There is no way an escalator should amputate a child’s fingers,” said Bridgeport lawyer Mark D. Arons, who represents the toddler’s mother. “And the placement by the mall of a play area between two escalators, with no barriers or fencing to keep children from running off, and with no supervision, is extremely dangerous and an accident waiting to happen.”
Westfield America Spokeswoman Robyn Cottelli and KONE Spokesman Kevin Metz said they do not comment on pending litigation.
On June 14, 2018, the toddler’s 16-year-old cousin had taken the girl to the mall while the girl’s mother was in the hospital giving birth, the suit states. They had been in the play area set up between the escalators outside the JC Penny store when, the suit states, the toddler bolted toward the down escalator. She fell on the bottom step of the escalator, her hand getting caught.
According to the mall security incident report, mall security officers arrived at the scene to find the cousin holding the toddler and repeating that she needed help.
The security director who arrived on scene asked the cousin for permission to examine the child’s injury. The cousin, according to the report, “just kept repeating, ‘her fingers, I cannot look.’ ”
The security director checked the child’s injury and noticed that two of her fingers had been severed at the middle joint, the report states.
The teenager asked the security officers to find her cousin’s missing fingers and they were both located, but only after taking apart part of the escalator.
The toddler was taken to Bridgeport Hospital and transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital. Arons said the girl’s mother was also transferred to Yale to be near her daughter.
“This is a family tragedy. The mother of the child was giving birth at the time this horrific incident occurred. This should have been a time of great joy for this family,” Arons said.