Elderly woman dies as neck caught under Tokyo store’s escalator rail

From NHK & Kyodo

June 12 2024

TOKYO – A woman in her 80s died Wednesday after her neck became trapped under the handrail at the bottom of an escalator at a supermarket in Tokyo, police said, in the latest accident of its kind in recent months.

Security camera footage from the store in Nishitokyo, western Tokyo, shows the woman fell as she attempted to lift the walker she was using as she approached the bottom of the escalator. Her neck then became trapped between the underside of the handrail and the floor.

On the morning of the 12th, a woman in her 80s was found collapsed with her neck trapped near the handrail of an escalator at a supermarket in Nishitokyo City, Tokyo, and was taken to the hospital, but later died. The woman was using a shopping cart, and the Metropolitan Police Department is currently investigating the details of the incident.

Just before 10:30 a.m. on the 12th, a call was made at OK Higashifushimi supermarket in Nishitokyo City reporting that “a person had their neck caught in the escalator.”

When paramedics and police officers rushed to the scene, they found a woman in her 80s who had come to shop lying near the escalator’s handrail opening, with her neck trapped between the handrail and the alcove. She was taken to hospital, but died a short time later.

The woman had boarded the escalator from the first floor with a shopping cart she had brought with her, and fell when she got to the basement floor. The Metropolitan Police Department is currently investigating the exact circumstances of the incident.

The incident occurred at a supermarket in an area lined with houses, about 800 meters southwest of Higashifushimi Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line.

This escalator was narrow enough that two adults could not stand side by side.

The woman got on the escalator with a shopping cart that she had brought with her.

However, for some reason, she fell near the exit and her neck was likely pinned between the handrail and the alcove near the handrail’s wraparound opening on the left side of the direction of travel.

At the time, the woman was lying on her back and the handcart was nearby.

A female shopper in her 50s said, “They should find out what caused the accident.”

A shopper in her 50s said, “The store staff were directing people to use the stairs, so I wondered what had happened, and then I heard from a police officer that there had been an accident. It was a recently opened supermarket, and I was surprised because I was using the escalator. I want them to find out what caused the accident and prevent it from happening again.”

Another shopper, a woman in her 80s, said, “When I heard that someone my age had died, I realized it was something serious. I’m always careful when using escalators, but after this accident, I want to be even more careful.”

The store operator, OK Corp., said in a release that it will cooperate fully with police, and offered its condolences. The escalator was newly installed for the store’s opening in March, and no issues were found with the installment or with how it was checked, it said.

The accident follows a March incident in JR Mito Station, northeast of Tokyo, in which a man in his 70s died from suffocation after his suit jacket became ensnared in an escalator handrail.

From 2010 to May 2023, a total of 54 escalator-related accidents, some involving serious injury or death, were reported by municipal authorities and other sources to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.