Horrifying video shows moments before 3-year-old North Carolina boy plunges 20 feet to his death from airport escalator
The horrifying video of the moments before a 3-year-old boy plunged 20 feet to his death while playing with his two siblings on an escalator near the baggage claim at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, North Carolina, has been released.
Jaiden Cowart had been playing with his two siblings, aged two and four, on September 25 just before 9 pm, in the space between two escalators at the airport when his clothing got caught in the machine and he was pulled to the top then fatally dropped.
In the CCTV footage made public by the police, the children's mother, Jiterria Lightner, was nowhere to be seen for the entire length of the video.
The harrowing clip shows the trio gleefully playing near the escalator till Cowart tried to climb on his sister's shoulders. In the beginning of the video, Cowart's sister was seen grabbing on to the handrail of the escalator. While ascending, she picked her brother up and the two continue to travel upwards. The footage ends there and the moment he was pulled up by the machine to the top was not revealed.
Lightner claimed that she was sitting 15 feet away from the escalator and trying to arrange a ride to take the family back to their North Carolina home. She was arrested and charged with three counts of child neglect.
A painting contractor rushed over to try and help the children after seeing one of them falling from a towering height. He was able to catch Cowart's sister but didn't reach him in time, according to an airport report. Cowart suffered "major trauma to the head" an airport worker, who witnessed the incident, said.
He added that passengers swarmed around and asked him to "do something," after which he called a medic, ABC News reported.
"It appears that he was trying to reach over to grab the stair railing and when he tried to grab the railing, that's when he took the unfortunate fall. (They) went from saying this is an accident, now saying that you've committed a crime," Michael Greene, Lightner's attorney, told Channel 9 News. "She was caring for a 4-, 3- and 2-year-old and trying to arrange a ride from the airport. I'm here saying she's not guilty of misdemeanor child abuse."
"This is one of those incidents that could've happened to anyone of the members of this community, and, unfortunately, the decision came down to charge her with a crime," he added.