BOSTON — An escalator malfunction in Boston after the Saints & Patriots game on Sunday sent several people to the hospital. Two members of the Who Dat nation were able to help.
Sarah Aucoin and Claire Maia were both in New England for the Saints game on Sunday, and while they were there, they were able to stop a malfunctioning escalator from hurting more people, reports said.
While the Saints fans were on the escalator Sunday after the game, the escalator reversed direction, causing dozens of people to fall, a report from Boston CBS affiliate WBZ-TV said.
"When I felt it stop, we ran to the top," Aucoin said. " I looked behind me. I saw the pile of people, and I saw blood everywhere."
Maia told reporters she was able to quickly step off the escalator and spring into action.
“I ran and hit the emergency stop button on the escalator and held it down until I was sure it was stopped,” Maia said.
Boston paramedics said nine people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, but Maia said she saw people that were badly hurt.
“This little girl at the bottom, she had most of the side of her face gone, and her ear was almost off her head,” Maia said. "Her mother had part of her scalp missing."
Krystal Tremblay told WBZ-TV she was there when it happened.
"The escalator was moving upward, and then it just went backward," Tremblay said to reporters in Boston. "Everyone just started falling like dominoes."
Tremblay said she has seen some gruesome injuries as well.
“People were falling over each other,” Tremblay said. "There were kids in there. Three people were hurt pretty badly on the ground. They were bleeding."
The Saints fan's actions may have saved more people from being hurt.
WBZ-TV reported that more than 20 people were hurt in a 1996 malfunction at the same subway station, and in 2011, another malfunction hurt five others.
Officials with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said the escalator will remain out of service as they figure out what led to the malfunction.