Boy Hurt by Escalator Is Recovering

SANTA ANA —  A toddler who was badly injured when his clothing became stuck in an escalator was in stable condition Thursday and “doing a lot better,” his mother said.

Cody Carter, who will be 3 years old in two weeks, was removed from the intensive care unit and moved into a private room at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana six days after his shorts were snagged in an escalator at MainPlace mall in Santa Ana.

Cody sustained cuts to his stomach, legs and groin.

“The only thing that’s keeping me together is that he’s doing so much better than how we first thought he would,” said his mother, Kathy Carter, who spoke publicly about the Saturday accident for the first time Thursday.

In a telephone interview from Cody’s hospital room, Carter said she had “no idea how his shorts got caught.

“I turned around and he was lying on his stomach, caught,” said Carter, a preschool teacher.

She said she was with her father at the time. Several people in the mall came to Cody’s aid, trying to find the shut-off button to the escalator.

“Everybody was looking for it. It seemed like it took forever,” she said.

All the while, Carter said, her son remained “fairly calm.”

As she spoke, Cody could be heard talking with his father and 5-year-old sister. “We’re just so glad he’s doing better,” Carter said.