Woman dies in T escalator accident

Article of clothing stuck in machinery

To hear her only child tell it, Helen Jackson was 82 and vibrant.

She was a regular at Sunday service and Wednesday choir rehearsal at Holy Tabernacle Church in Dorchester, and she spent much of her time volunteering at a day-care at the ABCD Head Start on Geneva Avenue, said her daughter, Citerial Trotman of Dorchester.

She said her mother would not hesitate to take the train by herself, which was what she was doing yesterday enroute to an eye doctor's appointment about 10 a.m. when she was killed in an accident involving an escalator at the MBTA's State Street Station, officials said.

"We've lost a wonderful woman, that's for sure," Trotman said. "God knows what I'm going to do now."

Jackson, of Dorchester, was leaving the Orange Line platform and was nearing the top of the escalator when she apparently fell and a piece of her clothing got caught in the machinery, MBTA Transit Police Deputy Chief Joe O'Connor said.

Authorities also said the woman suffered a cardiac arrest, but it was not clear whether the cardiac problem came before or after the fall.

Rescue crews rushed to free her, but she was pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Authorities said the incident remains under investigation. An autopsy will be performed.

"That will be the subject of a medical investigation, whether any cardiac event precipitated or followed any mechanical incident," said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office.

This is not the first time someone has died in an escalator accident on the MBTA. In February 2005, Francisco Portillo, a 34-year-old restaurant worker from East Boston, was killed at the Porter Square Station when the hood of his sweatshirt slipped into a gap in the escalator's machinery and the moving stairs wrenched it around his neck. Someone hit the emergency shutoff button on the escalator, but it was too late.

Accidents involving escalators plagued the system for years. The old, single-file Aquarium Station escalators, replaced in 2003 when the station was rebuilt, were the scene of several accidents, including one in 1995 in which a 3-year-old Cambridge boy's leg was severely gashed. A year later, a Beacon Hill man got his coat caught in the escalator at State Street, ensnaring his arm, which had to be amputated.

In 1994, a Globe series on the dangers of escalators uncovered an alarming increase in the number of injuries, particularly among children, that occurred because elevators and escalators were not being properly inspected in the state. The series led to changes in the way the state inspects elevator and escalator equipment, and the national organization that sets construction standards instituted tougher braking measures for escalators.

According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, there were 11,000 escalator-related injuries in 2007, with the majority stemming from falls.

Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the MBTA, would not say whether the escalator at the State Street Station has any mechanism that forces it to shut down if anything gets caught, saying in an e-mail, "Very few in the nation do."

"Like the vast majority of escalators in the US, it operates as escalators are designed and built to operate," he said.

Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the state Executive Office of Public Safety, said the escalator was last inspected on May 27, when inspectors found nothing wrong. The escalator was due for its annual inspection this May, he said. There have been no complaints about it working improperly, Harris said.

Pesaturo said the escalator had undergone routine monthly maintenance last month and received a routine weekly inspection Monday.

Yesterday, investigators could be seen concentrating on the base of the escalator at the subway level. The area was blocked off, and commuters seemed to be unaware of the events that had occurred hours earlier.

Justine Silverman, 48, on her way home to Dorchester, said: "I use that escalator sometimes, never had a problem with it. I think they should shut it down though, until they make sure it is safe for everyone. I'm always cautious about not getting my clothing near the stairs."

Martin Finucane, Michael Levenson, and Brian Ballou of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com.