Mind the gap, especially on Escalators.

As I got off the Underground an elderly woman was slowly trailing behind me, pulling a suitcase. I got one of those little mental flashes that said, “Let her go. Watch her.” So I stopped and fiddled with my pack and suitcase until she was in front of me. The woman went around a corner and I lost sight of her briefly. Then I saw this flash of movement off to my left. It was a middle-aged guy making a Superman-like leap up onto the escalator. I swear he made five steps in one bound. It was to rescue the elderly woman, who had fallen backwards and was lying all twisted as the escalator moved her slowly, inexorably upwards. She hadn’t made a sound. I made my own five-in-one leap and slapped the “emergency stop” button at the bottom of the escalator. By then he had helped her up and was escorting her back down. She had a teeny little scratch on her forehead and seemed a little flustered but of course very British: “I’m all right, thank you.” The man went up to get her suitcase for her. A couple of airport staffers came running down, probably having seen it happen on camera. (Britain, birthplace of “1984,” is the most-surveilled country in the world.) I was telling the woman she probably ought to sit down for a moment to collect herself. “I took a little fall myself about six weeks ago, and it shook me up for a few minutes,” I said. She nodded vaguely. “Yes, I suppose I ought.” A glimpse of my future?

All Escalator should have this as below