When Thomas Quigley went to pick up his wife at Detroit Metro Airport last summer, he first greeted her in baggage claim with a hug and a kiss. Then he retrieved her luggage from the carousel and told his wife of 48 years to wait in the terminal while he got the car.

It was hot outside, and his wife was traveling with her 90-year-old mother. Quigley headed to an escalator, hauling his mother-in-law's red roller bag in one hand, and his wife's carry-on tote in the other.

It's a memory that still haunts his family; it was the consummate gentleman's final act.

Quigley, 71, of Windsor, Ontario, died after slipping on the airport escalator while adjusting the roller bag on the step behind him. He fell backward and broke his neck — an accident that his family says exposes a serious, and ignored, public safety problem at Detroit Metro Airport, where nearly one person a week gets hurt on an escalator.

Detroit Metro Airport has no signs warning passengers that luggage, strollers and wheelchairs are prohibited on escalators, and that elevators should be used instead. Many other airports have these signs, in places like Tampa; Albany, New York; Charlottesville, Virginia; Montreal and London. But not Detroit Metro. This has Quigley's family pushing for change as they believe a sign could have prevented their father's accident.

"I can't find peace. I feel like he was taken from us, and I feel like this shouldn't have happened," said Amy Facchineri, Quigley's middle daughter, noting her family has hired a lawyer and is considering a lawsuit.

"Our priorities are that this doesn't happen to anybody else. Signage is such a simple thing," Facchineri said. "It's not that I don't believe in personal responsibility, but there is an onus on the airport to inform people that they have options. And signage is a simple, cost-effective measure."

Quigley's family believes that had there been a no-luggage sign, with arrows pointing to the nearby elevator, their father might have opted to use the elevator instead of the escalator that day. It is a good safety measure, especially for elderly people, they say.

"It is ridiculous that right now they know of a danger — an elderly man died — and they will not even bother to put up a simple sign or even a sticker," said Troy attorney Shereef Akeel, who has asked the airport to install baggage warning signs near escalators, but to no avail.

"I have alerted them," Akeel said. "And shockingly they don’t see a need."

'Not standard practice'

According to the Wayne County Airport Authority, on average, between 40 and 50 escalator accidents occur each year at Detroit Metro Airport. That's nearly one accident a week. This is based on data over the last five years, during which millions of people passed through the airport, including 35.2 million in 2018.

The airport authority did not provide an exact number of escalator accidents, saying only that these incidents are due to a variety of reasons, including ill travelers.

"Unfortunately, there was one fatality, which was the tragic accident involving Mr. Quigley," WCAA spokesperson Erica Donerson said in a statement to the Free Press, in which she explained why Detroit Metro doesn't prohibit luggage on escalators.

"After reviewing best practices throughout the U.S. aviation industry, especially large hub airports like Detroit Metropolitan Airport, we confirmed prohibiting luggage on escalators is not standard practice,' Donerson said. "While we may modify our signs in the future, we don’t have plans to add language prohibiting luggage."

Donerson also defended Detroit Metro Airport's safety measures, noting escalators are regulated by the State of Michigan, which has no law banning suitcases on escalators or requiring no-luggage signs near escalators. Rather, state law only requires that yellow stickers be placed on the handrails urging user safety.

"Our escalator signage is compliant with state regulations. The decals on our escalators urge passengers to hold the handrails, keep loose clothing and long skirts off escalator steps, attend to children and avoid the sides of the escalator," the airport authority said, adding that customers have the option to use elevators or escalators in baggage areas.

Detroit Metro Airport's practices, however, conflict with some of the safety recommendations of the manufacturer that built the escalator that Quigley died on. That manufacturer is New Jersey-based Schindler Elevator Corporation.

In a safety brochure for escalator riders and owners, Schindler Elevator lists several escalator safety tips and proper use recommendations:

"If your hands are full with packages or luggage, choose a nearby elevator instead of the escalator." And, "Do not take wheelchairs, electric scooters, strollers, hand carts, luggage carts or similar items on the escalator."

Schindler also has stated in an owner's manual that escalator operators and owners should "Advise passengers regarding proper use."

To Quigley's family and their lawyer, that means to put up a no-luggage sign.

Letting go

It was about 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 4, 2018, when Michelle Quigley last heard her husband's voice. He told her to wait in the baggage terminal at Detroit Metro Airport while he went to get the car.

He said it would take him awhile. So she waited.

Minutes later, unbeknownst to Michelle Quigley, police were dispatched to the North terminal baggage area for a man who had fallen on an escalator.

According to police records, video footage, an accident report, and interviews with family, Quigley stepped onto the escalator with a dark-colored hand bag in his left hand and a large red roller bag in his right. He was wearing brown flip flops. With the larger bag on the step behind him, he turned to adjust it, slipped, fell backward, hit the ground, and became unresponsive.

An unidentified passenger activated the emergency stop button while another passenger, a registered nurse, stopped to help. She held his head to support it and to maintain an airway while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

Meanwhile, Michelle Quigley waited for her husband near the curbside doors. Several minutes had passed when she decided to go outside to see if she could spot his car. While waiting, she noticed two ambulances had pulled up just outside the terminal. EMTs were loading someone into one of the emergency vehicles. She wasn't close enough to recognize the patient, or make out any details.

After nearly 45 minutes passed, Michelle Quigley, whose cellphone was in her carry-on bag, which was with her husband, started getting concerned and went inside to ask an airport employee whether someone could page her husband in the parking garage. They told her that paging wasn't possible in the parking garage, and suggested she go to the United Airlines information desk for help.

An employee at the information desk informed her that there had been an accident on an escalator, but that she didn't know the name of the person involved. Eventually, the employee received a call from Beaumont Hospital. A medical worker there had found Michelle Quigley's cellphone in the tote bag that was with her husband, along with her flight itinerary, and called the airport to let personnel know that a Thomas Quigley was at Beaumont, and that if anyone was looking for him, they should get to the hospital —immediately.

A police car drove Michelle Quigley and her mother to the hospital, where she would find her once energetic and strong-willed husband, the father of their three beautiful daughters and six beloved grandchildren, unconscious and on a respirator. The man who loved driving to the country with her to get vegetables, flowers or ice cream, who took great pleasure in surprising her with gifts and picking out clothes or jewelry for her, was slipping away.

But Michelle Quigley couldn't grasp that.

"Her first question was, 'When can we take him home?' " recalled her daughter, Amy Facchineri, who was with her in the emergency room.

But the doctors said the injuries were significant, that if he should survive, he would most likely be a quadriplegic.

Quigley was then transferred to an intensive care unit. A neurosurgeon came in and told the familythat there was no hope for recovery.

"Her world was lost. She was devastated," Facchineri said of her mother, who, throughout the night, urged the doctors to try and save her husband.

At 4 a.m., Michelle Quigley's youngest daughter Laura arrived from Montreal. At 11 a.m., her oldest daughter, Sara Quigley-Ricks, arrived from Dallas.

A collective decision was made. The Catholic family had a priest come for an anointing of the sick. They said their goodbyes.

"My father was a very strong, active man. There's no way he would have wanted to be kept alive in a vegetative state," said Facchineri, who stayed at her father's bedside with her mother and two sisters.

"The four girls, he used to call us," recalled Facchineri, who spoke through tears as she recalled the man who was known and cherished for his raspy voice, large rough hands, generous spirit and endless teasing and sarcasm.

There, in the ICU unit, Quigley, a Nova Scotia native and retired executive from Hiram Walker liquor distributor who went to college in Maine and raised a family in Windsor, was surrounded by the loves of his life: his wife and three daughters.

The pain is still raw for Facchineri and her sisters. They are angry, hurt and determined to honor their father by fighting for change so that this doesn't happen to anyone else.

"I don't know that I have any peace," said Facchineri, stressing she and her sisters are determined to do what they can to make sure that what happened to their father doesn't happen to anyone else.

"This shouldn't have happened," she said. "I still haven't been able to reconcile that."

Escalator injuries frequent with elderly, children

According to Kansas City products liability attorney Ben Fields, who has researched and written extensively about escalator safety, three-quarters of escalator injuries in the U.S. result from falls, not entanglement-related issues. Children and elderly people make up the majority of the victims.

These accidents, according to his research, have increased steadily over the last few decades:

In 1990, there were 4,900 escalator-related injuries and deaths in the U.S.

By 2000, that number had doubled to more than 10,100 injuries and deaths.

In 2013, the last year for which he has data available, 12,260 escalator-related injuries and deaths were reported.

Fields' statistics came from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, which is maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Despite these numbers, the escalator industry won't own up to what's happening, said Fields.

"The industry always blames the victim," said Fields, who believes Detroit Metro Airport's escalator injury statistics — almost one accident a week — are daunting.

"That's a lot of people getting hurt," Fields said. "These numbers should be zero or very, very close to zero."

But a key problem, Fields said, is that there is very little oversight of the escalator industry, which isn't regulated by any federal governmental agency.

"It’s a self-policed industry," said Fields, claiming escalator operators are "very resistant to change" and adopting "simple" safety measures, such as the no-baggage signs in airports.

"Those kinds of warning signs are very rare," Fields said. "They're a very good idea. They're smart and they're appropriate. But they have not been used as widely as they should be."

There is no law or regulation mandating no-baggage signs near escalators. The only standards published for the industry are those put out by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which does not require escalator operators to post no-luggage signs near escalators. It does, however, allow for airports to use these signs as an added safety measure, if they so choose. But the signs have to be up to code: they have to be a certain size and located in an area that doesn't create confusion or a safety hazard.

"I think they're a great idea and they should be on every escalator in the country, especially in airports and transit terminals," Fields said.

Akeel, the Michigan attorney who is fighting to have the signs installed at Detroit Metro Airport on behalf of Quigley's family, agreed, saying:

"To err on the side of caution, you would think they would take the safer route. Other airports have ... One loss of life is worth this consideration."

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter@Tbaldas