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MBTA warns: Wheelchair, escalator mix will flip you out

Escalators and motorized wheelchairs just don^t mix, a lesson a woman learned the hard way in South Boston last Friday.

The MBTA yesterday released a video showing the 56-year-old woman being launched backwards and flipping over several times as she attempted to ride her scooter up a moving escalator at Broadway Station on Friday morning.

^It was released to demonstrate the consequences of ignoring the rules pertaining to escalators,^ MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said of the transit authority^s decision to post security camera footage on YouTube. ^Strollers, scooters and wheelchairs are prohibited. An elevator is about fifty feet from this escalator at Broadway Station.^

The woman, whom the T did not identify, did not appear to be seriously injured and declined medical attention, Pesaturo said.

The video shows the woman ride up to the base of the escalator behind a tourist and his two sons, reaching out to grab its hand rail with her left hand. She suddenly starts rising upward ^ for a few moments. But then disaster strikes and she is shot backward, as if bucked from a bronco.

^The chair flips over, and an alert MBTA bus operator pushed the escalator^s emergency stop button,^ Pesaturo said, noting that other bystanders raced to her aid, including the tourist who ran down the upward moving escalator. ^After her tumble, the woman stands up and walks down the escalator.^

^Seemingly embarrassed, she said very little to T personnel,^ he added.

Pesaturo said there were no defects with the elevator.