Mom Charged in Toddler's Fatal Fall from North Carolina Airport Escalator
A North Carolina mom has been charged two months after her three-year-old son’s fatal fall from an airport escalator.
Jitteria Lightner was charged this week with three counts of misdemeanor child abuse following Jaiden Cowart’s tragic fall at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Sept. 25, according to WSOC-TV.
According to Lightner, her son was leaning against the glass portion of an escalator near baggage claim at the airport in Charlotte when the incident occurred.
Lightner’s attorney, Michael Greene, told CBS 17 that his client was “literally 10 to 15 feet away” from where the accident took place.
“No one has their child strapped to their hip for 24 hours a day,” Greene told the outlet. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s neglect going on.”
The accident, Greene explained, took place when Jaiden and one of his two siblings at the airport were between the closely situated escalator and stationary stairway. Jaiden wrapped his arms around the escalator’s moving handrail, was carried up, and eventually fell, before dying later at a nearby hospital.
The lawyer told WSOC-TV that Jaiden’s mother “was caring for a 4-, 3- and 2-year-old and trying to arrange a ride from the airport” when the boy fell and “she’s not guilty of misdemeanor child abuse.”
“This is one of those incidents that could’ve happened to any one of the members of this community," Greene said.
There are reportedly other escalators at Charlotte Douglas where a youngster would physically be unable to fit in between an escalator and stairwell and suffer the same fate.
WSOC-TV reports that the escalator in question has suffered multiple violations in the past — including a series that rendered it closed for a month in 2016 — but is back in use at the airport as the state’s Department of Labor continues to investigate the accident. The most recent violation related to the handrail — of which there are several — and its speed was in 2013.
———
©2019 New York Daily News
Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
