Background Escalator appears everywhere in urban public areas like tubes, malls, and some sorts of entertainment venues in recent years in Shan Xi Province in North 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 42 escalator-related injury incidents happened in Shan Xi province with one preschooler victim or more ever reported by the Media, we succeeded in capturing 31 eligible so as to investigate in depth subsequently. Data inputting and analyses were based on SPSS 20.0 to describe the characteristics epidemiologically of escalator-related injury incidents.

Results There were 35 preschoolers in 31 escalator-related injury incidents totally. Victims went to different outcomes like death 2, finger loss 8, scalp or skin elsewhere laceration 22, soft tissue contusion 16, bone fracture 2, functional deformity 20, and post-traumatic stress disorder 24. Mal-dressing was the main direct cause (50.08%) to escalator-related injuries among all victims including slippers, any dress or backpack with cord. Other causes contained playing with the rolling belt (23.22%), too long hair or skirt (20.38%), tread for power cut or other reasons (19.39%). Incident area concentrated near the entrance or exit of escalator (82.86%) and only 6 happened in the middle of the stairway following a tread (17.14%).

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