Yesterday afternoon, a 50-year-old man who witnesses say was attempting to run up the down escalator towards Hallidie Plaza at the Powell Street BART Station suffered an unknown medical condition that caused him to fall on the moving stairs. According to the Examiner, emergency crews responding to the scene around 1 p.m. Tuesday found the man at the bottom of the escalator with his hair and jacket caught in the machinery. SFFD crews were able to cut the man free and performed CPR before transporting the man to SF General where he was later pronounced dead. While authorities have yet to announce the exact cause of death and are still piecing together eyewitness accounts, several local bloggers caught the surrounding aftermath.
The SFAppeal has photos from around 3 p.m. yesterday, when the scene was still roped off with police tape. Fellow blogger Sally Kuchar, who sent in the photos, mentioned "there was a bunch of debris shoved in the bottom portion of the escalator, like it had been sucked in or something."
Likewise, TheTender who passed by the scene around the same time, noted about a dozen policemen sorting out the details and relays some unconfirmed rumors from another witness that the victim died of head injuries after his jacket got caught in the escalator.
[SFExaminer]
[Chron]
[SFAppeal]
[TheTender]