Escalator pile up drama - potential disaster averted

I always wondered why no strollers were allowed on escalators.  How about the emergency shut off button?  I always wondered why you would ever need that...  DID wonder anyway. Yesterday we avoided a mini disaster... I hate to admit it but the scariness of it was really exciting.  It went something like this:

After school rush of kids and adults all getting on the Metro -- tons of people on the escalator heading down to the underground rail line.  In front of me was a grandma and her two kids, Sim and Mia in her stroller.  Behind me a line full of people all waiting to get off the escalator.

Suddenly.. one of the lil ones in front of us spills a slew of items onto the escalator and just looks at it.. grandma thinks about it and decides to pick them up but she made her mistake by turning her back on the escalator so she can no longer see how fast the stairs flatten to the ground.

I think to myself  oh dear god hurry... and how the f*ck do you say turn around in Catalan? You can see disaster coming quickly and sure enough the stairs hit the ground and she tumbles.. then her kids tumble and Simi reaches out to help the grandma by protecting her head and she is still struggling.  The problem now is here I come with the stroller in front of me which I am about to steam roll 3 people with and possibly Simi too.. things are still on the ground.. people have piled up at the bottom. I can't walk backwards up the moving stairs because theres nothing but people and doing nothing means trucking over some children... I decide maybe I can get a few more seconds if I lift Mia up in the stroller and I can squeeze through the now 4 people blocking the escalator.. So I lift my now 25+ pounds of Mia, 12 lb stroller and 10lb+ of school books up in the air.. but DAMN not high enough because I had no idea I was dealing with 50 lbs at this point so the woman behind quickly helps..    Mia is up for a second saving a stroller to the face but STILL people were in the way and you just KNOW at this point it's my child or yours thats going to get hurt ..however if I DON'T take a step forward soon I will fall on them with Mia in the stroller smashing to the ground... a second later I took what I thought was the safest step and bumped into one of the girls and quickly everyone scurries out of the way at the last possible second with only minor banging into each other.  Finally traffic cleared...a mass of us took a deep sigh of relief.. but I do think grandma hurt herself a bit.

Yea... I'll be sticking to the elevator when I have the stroller from now on.