Posted on 02/16/2017 11:23:44 AM PST by nickcarraway
An alert shopper is being called a hero after he caught a teen who fell from an escalator in Missouri earlier this month, according to KTVI.
Surveillance video shows two teenagers playing near an escalator inside the South County Center on Feb. 4. The teens are shown grabbing the moving handrail and holding on until it lifts them off the ground.
One of the teens held on for too long and was dangling 20 feet above the ground when she started screaming for help. Seconds later, the escalator handrail forced her to let go. Mark Maloy stood under the girl and caught her before she hit the ground.
The girl, who was not injured, left the mall before Maloy learned her name. The girl's friend thanked him for catching her friend.
Mall officials issued a statement thanking Maloy for saving the girl. The mall also said horseplay near escalators is against the mall's conduct policy.
Good man. Stupid girl. Glad that neither was hurt.
He probably needs to go see a doctor and check out his back.
A noble act that many would not have attempted. He risked serious injury to himself.
What made his heroism really impressive is that the girl weighed 300 lbs....
Now that’s a hero.
She is a lucky girl.
I don’t know how old the man is, but I hope he is okay.
6000 lbs of force!...............
She probably left without thanking him directly, because she was supposed to be in school. Somebody somewhere has this incident on a cell phone video.
In the movies, she would have (been a little bit older) given him a kiss, said ‘My Hero!” and they would have shopped happily ever after.
I#*Y&! double-tap ...
I wonder what the Mall’s conduct policy looks like.
[I wonder what the Malls conduct policy looks like.]
“Conduct policy”??? You clearly have not stepped foot in a mall during the past decade!!
When he was five, my son fell out of a tree and I caught him. Probably he was eight or nine feet up.
It was one of the loveliest feelings I’ve ever had, and I feel very lucky to have experienced it and not to have been hurt.
He thought I was a superhero for the day, although chances are he wouldn’t have been badly hurt if I hadn’t been there.
The force is equal to the rate of deceleration of momentum.
That is, F=ma, or since a = d/dt(dx/dt), and P = mv = m(dx/dt), F=dP/dt.
So if the girl is soft, or he swings a bit when he catches her, or if she’s skinny (in which case she might not be soft) but she has less mass, the force is reduced.
If she hits him on the head with her heels, yeah, he’s a goner. But, he might decelerate her fall as he crumples.
My guess is that if she *had* fallen 20 feet, she'd have sued the mall for not posting a sign warning "Must ride escalator inside the handrails", or somesuch nonsense.
I fell about 15-20 feet as a child of about 12, out of a tree.
I landed in soft mud, or I wouldn’t be here today. Was knocked out for a few seconds, woke up and all my friends were staring down at me with freaked out looks..................
Let’s hear it for deceleration, even if its from mud. Glad you made it.
A Billy Goat butted me off a garage roof. Blackberry vines broke my fall. I was in 1st grade. Stinky damn goat.
Playing army in the woods I was about ten feet in a tree. I was about ten at the time. I heard “Dadadadadada! Got you Ray!” and the branch I was standing on cracked. It was as if I was shot out of the tree. I landed on an old mattress left there. I laughed so hard. Hmmmmmm? I wonder if that was the birth of my desire to be a stuntman (which I’m not)? I did some other crazy things physically but never really got hurt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.