Watching helplessly as a life slips away

Few aided woman caught in escalator, witnesses say

As 82-year-old Helen Jackson lay dying, pinned to the metal grating of an MBTA escalator that clenched her scarf and hair, commuters walked past her toward the exit, either unaware of the dire circumstances or unwilling to get involved.

A few good Samaritans intervened. One slammed the button that stopped the rising escalator. Another pleaded for any sort of help - scissors or even nail clippers to cut her free. Amid the muted chaos, a municipal security officer just outside the station radioed an emergency, then waited by his car for paramedics to arrive.

Moments mattered, and in the end, as one middle-aged man crouched at the top of the escalator, holding Jackson's hand while urging her to keep breathing, her grip loosened, her hand fell away, and she died. She was pinned so tightly to the escalator grating that the man couldn't fit his fingers between her scarf and her neck.

Two eyewitnesses, a father and his son, relayed these observations to the Globe, the fullest version yet of Jackson's death on an escalator at the State Street Station a little before 10 a.m. on Feb. 24. Although their account doesn't directly contradict any official reports, it adds a chilling level of detail to an elderly woman's final moments in a very public place. It also offers a sobering undertone, in the view of the witnesses, of a frustratingly casual response in a crowded place to a victim in dire need.

"I just felt they all let this woman down," said Larry Fitzpatrick of Framingham who said he was one of but four people who stopped to help Jackson of Dorchester. She was on her way to an eye doctor appointment when she somehow fell on the escalator and got tangled in the machinery.

"All we needed was a box cutter, knife, even a nail clipper, but we had nothing available," Fitzpatrick said. "She was struggling so much before she finally let go."

A spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office said that an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death. Officials said on the day of the accident that Jackson had suffered from some type of cardiac arrest but it was unclear whether that occurred before or after she fell. The autopsy could help determine the sequence.

Fitzpatrick did not see the woman fall. What he saw, though, were her last moments spent gasping for air as she was pinned against the escalator. All the while, he was struggling to free her.

"She looked at me, and just couldn't hold on. She couldn't hold on, she couldn't," said Fitzpatrick, a 50-year-old who ministers at a community church.

Public officials called the event a tragic accident. A spokeswoman for Boston EMS said that crews had responded within six minutes of the first call. City Hall officials said the security officer - Sergeant J.T. Donovan of the Municipal Protective Services Department, which patrols city property - made the right decision to stay outside, call in the incident, and wait to guide the EMS technicians. MBTA officials said they knew of no problems with the escalator, before or after the accident.

Jackson's death remains under investigation by the district attorney's office, MBTA Transit Police, and the state Department of Public Safety, which regulates escalators.

But the accounts of Fitzpatrick and his 21-year-old son, Larry Jr., as well as details provided by one other man who was nearby and law enforcement reports, depict a tragedy whose gravity may have been underestimated by all but those who saw the elderly Jackson fighting for her life.

"It seemed no one knew how serious this was except those who were with her," said a Brookline man, who watched the scene unfold from Government Center Plaza but requested anonymity so that he does not become part of the case. The man described in frustration how Fitzpatrick's son cried for help from those nearby.

He watched as Fitzpatrick Jr. rushed into nearby office towers, covered with blood that spilled from Jackson's mouth, searching for any type of cutting device.

By then, the security officer would not let anyone down into the station, the man said.

Fitzpatrick and his son did not provide their accounts to authorities. He says now that he felt disturbed by the sequence of events, angry even, and that he left before he could tell his story. He said that he spoke with one of the women who also stayed to help and that she told him she would file a report. A Globe review found that Fitzpatrick has a lengthy criminal history, but he said he holds nothing against authorities and, if asked, would provide his account to police.

In interviews last week, Jackson's family members said that they were disturbed by the reported scenario and were awaiting the conclusion of state investigations so they can review the reports.

Jackson was a vibrant woman, they said, a former teacher's aide and bus driver who spent her retirement years volunteering at a local day-care center. She walked with a cane but would travel anywhere.

"That woman would do anything," her only child, Citerial Trotman, of Dorchester, said Wednesday.

Investigators appear to be focusing on how Jackson fell. The escalator had passed an inspection on May 27, 2008, and was due for another annual inspection in May, said Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Public Safety.

Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the MBTA, said the escalator had undergone monthly maintenance in January and had been the subject of a routine inspection the day before the accident.

Last week, the escalator was functioning, while maintenance crews were inspecting a separate escalator in the same station.

Escalator injuries, even deaths, have occurred in the Boston area before. In 2005, a 34-year-old restaurant worker from East Boston was killed at 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 by then the man, Francisco Portillo, had died.

According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commissioner, some 11,000 injuries were related to escalators in 2007, with the vast majority stemming from falls.

One problem is that most escalators in the United States do not have a self-braking mechanism. Pesaturo, the MBTA spokesman, said the escalator at State Street Station has several internal switches that would trigger a shutdown if pressure was applied. But the escalator stopped only when a woman, believed to be the first to try to help, hit an emergency stop button when she saw Jackson already tangled in the steps, according to Transit Police reports.

Fitzpatrick believes that after Jackson fell, she was pulled to the top of the platform by the rolling stairs that grasped her clothing. An unidentified woman who had stopped on the escalator stairs called to passersby for help, asking "Please don't walk by her," Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick peered over a short wall to find Jackson twisted in the machinery, her clothing wrapped around her neck, gasping for air. One other woman stopped. Other commuters passed by her, he said. His son screamed out for help in finding any cutting device.

Outside the station leading to Government Center Plaza, Sergeant Donovan had started to radio in the incident. Recordings of emergency calls indicate that officials gradually realized the seriousness of the situation; the first dispatch reported a woman had her hair stuck in the escalator, then a dispatch from municipal security said that her arm and legs were stuck; an update said that she was unconscious, and then "They're getting really itchy, they're saying it's serious."

A crowd that formed nearby had started to notice the commotion.

As they watched, Fitzpatrick, his son, and the two women were inside the station, struggling to free Jackson, watching her fight to breathe.

"I was the one who told her not to worry, that I would get her out," Fitzpatrick said.

Milton Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com.