Escalators can never be temporarily out of order. They can only be temporarily stairs.
I know itβs a quote, but if the brakes failed on an escalator then yes it would be unusable even as stairs, however you wouldnβt be stuck on it at that point, youβd be in a pile at the bottom.
Or a temporary chainsaw from hell. That one clip of the one absolutely shitting the bed will haunt me.
The scene youβre probably thinking of is from one of the Final Destination movies. Not sure Iβd count those as the most solid of evidence.
They could also be referring to the time a woman threw her child clear from a failing elevator and then got promptly consumed. Happened in China.
Edit to add:
Could also be this one. Turns out thereβs a lot of incidents of people being monched.
C. C Iβm not sure what youβre talking about, I donβt watch those movies and the one Iβm thinking about was from (iirc) an asian mall CCTV recording or something to that effect.
You could probs google it and find it pretty readily, something like βescalator failure redditβ or that. Itβs like mall footage of an escalator that has motor failure or something and because itβsβ¦ well really heavy it basically it snaps at some point and just rips down with people just falling into the pit where the inner parts stay underneath.