A janitor at a mall in Shanghai lost part of his leg after a floor panel on an escalator collapsed from under his feet on Saturday evening.
Shocking surveillance video obtained by China Central Television shows the victim falling through the floor and getting the lower half of his left leg stuck. The man appears to have been cleaning the escalator when the accident occurred.
The Xinhua news agency identified the man's surname as Zhang, according to CNN. Emergency responders rushed to Shanghai's Cloud Nine mall and managed to free the man from between the escalator's treads. He was taken to a local hospital, where doctors decided to amputate part of his mutilated leg.
"The doctor said in order to prevent (the) situation from getting worse, they amputated his left calf," a relative of the victim told Xinhua, CNN reports.
Public broadcaster China Radio International reports that the victim is being blamed for the accident because he did not shut the escalator off before attempting to clean it.
Last week, a Chinese shopper died in a similar escalator accident after a metal floor plate collapsed under her feet. The woman managed to pass her child to a mall employee before she was dragged and crushed by the escalator's treads.