Parent’s nightmare as toddler has arm ripped off by Russian shopping centre escalator

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

A parent’s worst nightmare has been realised after a baby boy had his arm ripped off by an escalator at a busy shopping mall.

The two-year-old, who had become separated from his mother momentarily, reportedly leant down and put his hand into the escalator’s mechanism before his arm became entangled in the machinery.

His mother watched on in horror as the toddler’s right arm was severed below the elbow before emergency services rushed him to hospital for critical surgery.

“I heard screams, ran over, and saw a boy standing there with his arm torn off,” said Anastasia a pharmacist at the Botanica shopping Mall in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

“There wasn’t much blood, basically, his arm [up to the elbow] was in the escalator.

“The boy was crying … he was conscious”.

Other witnesses spoke of the horrific scene and efforts to assist the child and mother, with one man applying a tourniquet to the child’s arm as they waited for help to arrive.

“I heard the mother screaming,” the man told local news outlets.

“I saw the child standing there without an arm. I applied a tourniquet, then we bandaged him up.

“We waited for the ambulance and retrieved the arm.”

“The child didn’t lose consciousness — he held on until the very end.”

Efforts to try and save the child’s arm and reattach the limb in hospital failed, after it was packed in ice and transported with him into surgery.

The child’s father spoke of the intense situation and emphasised that his son was still in a critical condition after the operation.

“Our son is in intensive care, we are not allowed to see him yet,” according to The Sun.

“But we know he has been brought out of a medically induced coma.”

“I wasn’t there at the time — I was rushing from work. My wife was alone with the two children.

“I still don’t fully understand how it happened.

“When I arrived, we were trying together to get [his severed arm] out together.

“We pulled it from the side of the escalator, from the compartment where all sorts of rubbish falls.

“Half of the escalator was dismantled under the handrail on the right side.

“Most likely, he put his hand on the step and it folded in.”

According to some reports the mother was actually holding the child’s hand when he lowered his hand but they have not been confirmed.

Authorities are now investigating how the bloody injury happened and the Russian Investigative Committee have opened a criminal case to investigate.