Woman stranded for 10 min after dress gets caught in escalator at BreadTalk IHQ -- but no help came

A woman was left shaken after her dress got caught in an escalator at the BreadTalk International Headquarters (IHQ) building.

Stomper Cheryl said the incident occurred on the second-floor escalator of the Tai Seng building on January 9, at around 2pm.

Sharing photos of her torn dress, Cheryl recounted: "I was going to the ground floor (next to Din Tai Fung) on the escalator when halfway down, I realised that my dress was in the gap at the side of the escalator. There wasn’t any way to remove it and in fact, more of the cloth material got caught into the escalator as I descended.

"This process of entanglement of the cloth continued while I stood at the last bottom step of the escalator, screaming for help. I tried to free myself and everyone was a bit panicked when they saw me stuck at the bottom of the escalator.

"Someone behind me then quickly advised my companion to press on the emergency stop button."

The Stomper said it was lucky that she was not injured.

She added: "A couple went to look for security to ask for assistance while I stayed stranded with a good portion of my dress still stuck in the escalator.

"After a good 10 minutes, no help came. I tore my dress and went to the management office. Shockingly, two of the management staffs were sitting around and unaware of the incident. They took down my particulars and eventually wrote an email to acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with the escalator."

Cheryl, who shared a screenshot of the email reply that she received from the building's management, took issue with what she felt was a 'nonchalant' reaction from them during and after the incident.

(click to enlarge)

Cheryl told Stomp: "I am writing in to raise awareness of the dangers of such incidents, where a part of us or our belongings can get caught in escalators. I also wanted to share how the management reacted nonchalantly to the incident.

"In critical cases, our body parts could have gotten caught or the escalator might give way and cause injuries.

"However, in my case, there wasn't any help or assistance from the management. I stood there for at least five minutes trying to free myself and another five minutes waiting for security. Even when I went to the management office itself, the staff were unaware.

"That's when I got a bit mad. How can such an incident in public not be addressed in a timely order? This part of the escalator is crowded and is very dangerous if the management doesn't take action immediately when someone gets trapped."

In response to a Stomp query, a spokesman for BreadTalk IHQ said: "The mall management were informed of the incident on January 9 by the customer and immediately launched an investigation.

"Investigations have concluded and we have also shared our findings on this isolated incident with the customer on January 12 in our email correspondence.

"We would like to urge all patrons to be cautious when wearing long and flowy clothing items when using the escalators.

"Through this incident, we have also stepped up on our training and reiterated to our security team to be more vigilant in order to prevent the lapse from happening again.

"We recognise that the customer was understandably upset about the incident and thank her for her assistance and patience."

View more photos in the gallery.