Anchorage Daily News

A young girl was taken to a hospital Friday afternoon with what appeared to be serious injuries to her finger after it got caught in an escalator at the Fifth Avenue Mall, according to the Anchorage Fire Department. The girl, who was about 3 or 4, was going down the escalator with an adult woman when her finger got caught in the comb plate a little before 4:30 p.m., Capt. Joe Albrecht said. Someone hit the emergency stop on the escalator and firefighters pried her finger out after about five minutes, he said.

"She was pretty brave, but I know it was hurting," Albrecht said. "It was the kind of injury that none of us like to see."

Albrecht said it was not clear how the girl got her finger caught. The escalator appeared to have been in good working order, he said.

It is the second time this year a young child has gotten snagged by an escalator in Anchorage. In February, a 3-year-old girl got her hand caught and mangled in an escalator at J.C. Penney in downtown Anchorage.

"Parents have to watch their kids all the time," Albrecht said. "These machines are designed to be safe but every now and then, once in a blue moon, one of them will malfunction or someone will find an unforeseen way to get part of their body inside the machinery."

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