An escalator tried to kill my wife

Today's headline is admittedly a bit melodramatic, but it's true that Terry was almost eaten by an escalator not long ago.

We were returning to our car after taking in a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball game. It was bitter cold that day, so we parked at the Tower City complex in Downtown Cleveland and took the 1,000-foot underground pedestrian tunnel to and from the arena, rather than walking outside.

When we got back to Tower City, there was a line of people waiting to use the elevator to get down to the lower parking levels. Rather than waiting with them, we decided to go around the line and look for stairs or another way to reach the area where our car was parked.

We weren't sure where we were going (in retrospect, we should have just waited in the elevator line), and at one point I had us mistakenly go down an escalator I thought would get us where we needed to go. 

Turns out it was an escalator to an RTA Rapid train station. Even before we got to the bottom, we knew we were going the wrong way and would have to find our way back up to where we started and search elsewhere.

Just as we got to the bottom of the escalator, though, Terry pitched forward and fell. I thought she had just tripped, and I reached down to help her up.

But she wouldn't (couldn't) get up and instead just kept saying, "It's got me! It's got me!"

I didn't understand what she meant. What had her? Why wasn't she standing up?

Fortunately, a guy behind us saw instantly what had happened. Terry's shoelace had gotten caught in the escalator and her foot was being pulled down. He grabbed her leg and yanked her foot free, and immediately apologized that he had to break her shoelace to save her.

No apologies necessary, Mr. Good Samaritan. Once I understood what had happened, I was just grateful he had helped her. We both thanked him and eventually made our way to the parking garage and our car.

Terry came away mostly unscathed, though she was a little sore the next day.

And I'm not sure I'm getting her back on an escalator any time soon.