Cardinals Collapse Not The Worst to Inflict St. Louis Last Night

Less than 30 minutes after Matt Holliday took one off the midsection to cost the Cardinals Game 2 of the Division Series against the Dodgers in L.A., an escalator collapsed at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis following the end of the Blues 4-2 loss to the Atlanta Thrashers. What exactly did the Gateway City do to deserve this 30 minutes of sports-related havoc?

A witness on the scene who wouldn't give his name says fans were on the escalator not long after the game had ended. At that point, he said the escalator started moving extremely fast, as though a gear had broken loose. He says between eighty and one-hundred people were rushing toward the bottom of the escalator, literally piling on to one another as the machine went out of control. Kevin McKenna witnesses the accident, "The crowd kept forming out of nowhere. You heard like this big crash, and just out of nowhere, people started falling from the top of the elevator, just almost like a huge pile, and after that, everyone just started like popping up. People were running to see, ya know, where their friends and family were, it was crazy."

Thirteen people sustained injuries, though they are all being described as minor. According to Fire Capt. Bob Keuss, the side rails of the escalator that support the steps collapsed, which caused the bottom steps to buckle. An article of clothing had to be freed from the machine.

So when we talk about fixing our nation's crumbling infrastructure, we should probably add stadium escalators to the list along with all those bridges.

(Photo via Belleville News-Democrat)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.