Standardly when you lift the handle to press the emergency stop button you hear an buzzer like sound, much like a shot clock at a basketball game going off. If they didn't hear that noise, it likely wasn't a person who stopped it, but rather the escalator stopping because it thought something got stuck, or there was a malfunction.

Source: first job was a movie theater on the second floor of these things called malls that used to exist. Used to have to start/stop them and deal with kids lifting the lever to think about pressing the emergency stop, but the buzz noise would usually sway them from doing so

[–] 13igTyme@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Escalators don't stop if a person gets stuck, unfortunately. It actually pushes harder because it thinks there's a heavy load on top.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago

At least the ones we had have safety measures built into them, they may not catch everything but if you jump onto the escalator with two feet and slam your weight down, they would stop because they were built to assume the inconsistency was a possible fall.

[–] TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

That's what she said?

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