Escalator draws blood

On November 25 a lady friend (71 years old) and I parked in the under-roof parking at Lifestyle Centre in Ballito. I saw the one escalator leading to the shopping level was bannered off but the other one was not, but was also not working (moving). Other people went up on it (using it as normal stairs) and so did we. My friend went slowly as the steps are not close together, but as she came to the top step, her left big toe got caught and she went down. I nearly had a heart attack myself. She cut her big toe and was bleeding a lot. We went to John Dory’s for lunch and an Indian lady helped my friend and put a plaster on from their first aid kit, for which we were very grateful.
These two escalators have been in and out of order for a long time and two chaps working on them a couple of months before told me that they break down because there is no roof and when it rains the pit fills up with water which causes them to stop working.
The tiling in front and behind the lifts are also very wet and slippery because the roof is leaking – rain or no rain.
JD VAN NIEKERK
Ballito
Lifestyle Property Manager Mark Pearse responds:
Thank you for the chance to respond. I apologise for the inconvenience of not having the escalators fully operational for our customers. The escalators were sold and installed at Lifestyle with an industry spec of “snow rated “ to endure the elements of inclement coastal weather and corrosion.
We acknowledge however, that after working tirelessly with our service provider on the maintenance and repair of them, we have failed to deliver an appropriate solution. With this in mind we are currently engaging with a number of service providers to implement an entirely different and exciting design in that area of the centre. This will be expedited during the course of 2016.
I trust that Mr van Niekerk’s friend’s wound has healed and once again apologise for this unfortunate incident.