This is the shocking moment a metro escalator nearly chews up a girl sitting on it after it sucks her coat inside it.

The incident was recorded on CCTV at Petrogradskaya station in the Saint Petersburg underground in Russia.

The footage shows the young woman sitting on the escalator steps as it goes down but she seems more concerned about her scarf instead of focusing on getting up after reaching the bottom.

Suddenly, the escalator appears to snag her coat, and the woman struggles to get to her feet, only managing to break away and avoid serious injury after a good Samaritan stops to help her.

The footage shows other commuters passing the duo, seemingly unconcerned at the young woman’s predicament.

Someone appears to press the emergency stop button as the escalator stops moving. With the pair still struggling with the coat as the footage ends.

The Saint Petersburg Metro press service told local media that the passenger had broken the rules of use of the escalator, but also said that local employees were at fault.

Yulia Shavel, a spokesperson for the Saint Petersburg Metro, said. “In this situation, the metro employee should have informed all the employees involved (we have internal instructions where calls should go. And the second thing she should have done was stop the escalator. In this regard we did not act quickly enough.”

The Saint Petersburg prosecutor’s office is reportedly investigating the incident.