Background Escalator appears more and more in urban public areas like tube, mall, and some sorts of entertainment venue in recent years accompanied by the modernization of Guangdong Province, China. We benefit facilities but suffer injuries simultaneously from it. Preschoolers are more vulnerable to injuries since they have poor recognition capability of danger. How do escalator-related injuries against preschoolers go like?

Methods From all 56 escalator-related injury accidents happened in Guangdong province at the fewest with one child victim aged 12 or below from the year of 2011 to 2014 by having recourse to the local Media who ever reported them, we succeeded in capturing 43 eligible so as to investigate in depth subsequently. Data inputting and analyses were based on the social statistic software SPSS 20.0 to describe the characteristics epidemiologically of escalator-related injury accidents.

Results There were 47 preschoolers in 43 escalator-related injury accidents totally. Victims went to different outcomes like death 2, finger loss 18, scalp or skin elsewhere laceration 33, soft tissue contusion 25, bone fracture 4, functional deformity 28, and post-traumatic stress disorder 12. Mal-dressing was the main direct cause (53.12%) to escalator-related injuries among all victims including slippers, any dress or backpack with cord. Other causes contained playing with the rolling belt (26.26%), too long hair or skirt (16.36%), tread for power cut or other reasons (4.26%). Accident area concentrated near the entrance or exit of escalator (88.37%) and only 5 happened in the middle of the stairway following a tread (11.63%).

Conclusions Escalator-related injuries to preschoolers damaged seriously in Guangdong Province, China. Better design for this electric equipment, adequate attention and safety education from families, and reasonable labels or notices around the site, are multilateral intervention approaches. They might help.