A man was looking for answers Thursday, after a trip to the movie theater almost ended up costing a East Harlem man his foot.
As CBS2’s Marc Liverman reported exclusively, the man got stuck riding up an escalator, and he wants an apology too.
It all happened around 8 p.m. Wednesday at the AMC 84th Street 6, at 2310 Broadway at 84th Street. It looked like business as usual at the theater late Thursday afternoon, but that was hardly the case the night before.
“I really was worried I was going to lose my foot,” said James Alston. “I was hollering and screaming.”
In the exclusive interview from his apartment in East Harlem, Alston, 71, described what amounted to the most terrifying moments of his life.
“The escalator, when I got near the top, it started breaking up,” he said.
Video at the scene showed the chaos of what happened next. Alston was taking the escalator inside the theater on the way to watch a movie with his family, and all of a sudden, he said it looked like the escalator bounced.
“I moved my right foot back, but it caught the left foot — and I was stuck there,” Alston said.
For what seemed like close to 15 minutes, his entire foot ended up lodged inside the escalator.
“I was hollering and screaming, ‘Please, get this off me!’” Alston said.
Firefighters and paramedics rushed to the scene. Alston said they were able to cut the step just enough to free his foot.
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