California Injury Blog

I was on that escalator and there were more serious injuries than being reported. My husband only hit his head and he and his brother went to help the injured. Universal studios is minimizing this. I wish I had recorded it so people could see what really happened. We watched people above us falling on the people below. I would say stitches and staples were how these injuries were repaired. I saw them with my own eyes. It took the staff 20 minutes to respond that is why myself and several others called 911. I also contacted ABC news after going to the guest relations to ask for our money back as we had just purchased passes 2 hours earlier. Joseph, Cindy and Stephanie were awful. They refused to refund us our money and were rude and unconcerned for my husband who hit is head. We did not want to sue. We felt that we had the right to ask for our money back as we never plan to go again. They are still refusing. No lie, being a counselor I know this was traumatic for all involved and even those who witnessed. Universal should apologize for this incident and their rude staff.

I too was on the recent unexpected 'thrill ride', and have a bit of a different perspective. There are some points on which I disagree with the previous anonymous poster. #1 - I too, saw all of the injuries and while there were definitely some painful scrapes and scratches, I did not see anything major, on the surface. Concussions and soft tissue strain can of course be sneaky injuries (I might even be dealing with a little bit of that myself), but I would not be surprised if there were no staples or stitches needed for anyone. Also, I watched the time very closely, because my son and I were actually rather in a hurry to leave the park, as I had to be in Big Bear by 6:30, but I didn't want to leave the scene until I knew that park employees were aware of the problem. From the time my son and I finished helping people off of the dog-pile at the bottom of the escalator, until the time a Universal Studios employee arrived and asked the injured people to gather together in one spot was between 6 and 7 minutes (cell phone clock - no seconds), not 20. She stated that a nurse was on the way, but from that point on I do not know how much longer it took.

On several other points the previous poster and I are in much agreement. Universal's official release stated that it came to a sudden stop, and then later they suggested it might have shifted in to reverse. Neither of these are true. The escalator very suddenly went from running upwards, so 'falling' down. It was freewheeling, and dropping way to fast (and continually increasing in speed) for it to be mechanically controlled in reverse. The mechanism was broken.

Regarding the traumatic impact of the experience, it will, of course, vary from person to person. My son and I were quite shaken up, and will not soon forget the incident, but we are both relatively young, and physically active people with a certain amount of confidence and resourcefulness that helped us to judge pretty quickly that we were most likely not in 'severe' danger, and that we would probably be o.k. In fact, as soon as I realized what was happening, I just yelled to my son "get ready to help people!". However, there were younger children, as well as several elder people, including visitors from other countries (I helped at least four people from Australia whom I would guess were at least in their 60's) for whom something like this would be much more frightening. For someone who is much more dependent on the people and environment around them, to have something like this fail under your feet, is a sudden thrust into helplessness. I have no doubt some of these victims will suffer some amount of grief and/or depression from the accident, and this should not be minimized.

Lastly; regarding liability and re-compensation, I certainly expect that they will cover medical expenses, but I am shocked to read the story above about them not refunding the money for those passes. That is appalling and unacceptable. Were it not for the fact that we were already on our way out, I don't really know when I will be back in the area, we suffered only minor scratches, and I didn't feel significantly traumatized by the event, I would have demanded some sort of free pass or some such. Universal Studios should, without question refund these people the money for the passes they had just purchased a mere two hours prior to the accident. I am curious to see how this shapes up.

My opinion. Roderick

I know that Universal has otis workers constantly working on maintaining the escalators where the accident happened and it was just a freak accident. Anyone that has gone up or down that hill will see 3 sets of escalators for each level and one of the sets each day is almost always shut down and being worked on for maintaining the working conditions of the escalators. The Otis workers also maintain the elevators in the park since the elevators and escalators are being used every day the park is open which is now all year long.

My daughter and I were on the escalator when it broke. There was 20 - 25 people on it and when it snapped it came in reverse free fall due to all the weight on it. I'm surprised that there isn't a brake to stop that from happening as in elevators and I was shocked to find that none of 7+ universal staff that responded offered any assistance to the injured except to stand around talking in their radios and to block off the escalator. Joseph Pardieu manager of guest relations side that their staff is not trained in first aid or have first aid kits available. They leave all that to emergency services.

So don't have a accident at the park since no one there will come to your aid they would rather watch you bleed than give you something clean to cover your wounds or even bring you a first aid kit so you can do it yourself.

The park did not refund our entry fee's but said if we want we can email them if we were not happy.

On a positive note when emergency services arrived they were outstanding.