Video shows 6-year-old girl survive fall from Southridge Mall escalator
By Erica Finke
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GREENDALE, Wisconsin (WISN) — New surveillance and police body camera video obtained by 12 News shows the moments right after a six-year-old girl fell from the railing of a second-floor escalator and survived.
The fall happened after 7 o’clock the night of Feb. 27. A Greendale police report states they received “multiple” 911 calls.
Several shoppers can be seen on mall surveillance video watching or running over to the girl sprawled out on the ground. A short time later, first responders can be seen keeping her still until they were ready to load her onto the stretcher.
Greendale police can be heard on body camera speaking with witnesses. One woman told an officer, “I looked over and the little girl went down and mom and dad were turning and we just heard a scream.”
Other witnesses seen on body camera video told officers they didn’t see the girl fall, but they heard it.
A woman inside a nearby shop told police, “I was in here and a heard a loud ‘thump’ and then I saw the, what must have been the parents, running down the escalator. I went out to investigate and see what the hell they were doing and then I saw the kid laying down.”
The little girl was eventually transported to a hospital, where a Greendale police officer interviewed her father and stepmother. In the recorded interviews, the parents stated they got off the escalator to go to Champs Sporting Goods.
“I thought that she was close near us, but she was by the escalator and by the time we turned around to call her over, she was like, oh, kind of like, ‘Hey, look what I can do’ type thing,” the stepmother told police.
The father stated they were five to seven feet in front of the girl when they saw her gripping the railing.
“We were already on the second floor and she grabs the top of the rail and she goes, and she was like Superman,” the father told police, “We turn around, we’re yelling like, “Let go, let go!” And then she held on. And then when it started going down, her body weight shifted and she flew off the side.”
Despite the terrifying fall from the second floor, the six-year-old was able to speak with police shortly after at the hospital.
The officer asked the young girl, “Does anything hurt on you at all? Your head? What hurts?” She replied, “My back and my arm.” She told the officer she didn’t remember going up the escalator or falling down.
Greendale police told 12 News the girl was released from the hospital the week of the fall. The police reports indicate the incident is believed to be an accident.
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