I can't believe what I saw today...

Today, Donovan and I had a little time to kill before picking Avery up from preschool, so we stopped at the mall after running some errands. We came in on the second floor, and were walking towards the escalators, when I heard a child screaming. I looked around and after a few seconds, I saw her. She was about three years old and was at the top of the escalator screaming. I couldn't tell what was wrong, but as I got closer, I realized that she wasn't on my side of the glass. She was hanging on for dear life on the other side of the escalator wall, clinging to the moving hand rail. The next floor down was at least 20 feet. There was no one around her and no one seemed to notice that she was in trouble. I ran to her and started screaming for someone to help me. I was holding Donovan in one arm, and grabbed her arm with my other hand. I was frantically calling for someone to help me, but no one seemed to be noticing me either. I knew that I couldn't pull her up with one hand because she was flailing around, nor could I bend down to drop Donovan and risk my grip on her arm loosening and dropping her. I held her to the side of the wall as tightly as I could for a few more seconds and finally I saw a lady running towards me, yelling that she would help me. We started to pull the little girl up and over, when finally her mother came running up the escalator. She snatched the little girl away from us and just took off, without saying a word to us. I was frozen and in shock and didn't even know what to do. The other lady and I just stood there looking at each other, and I was visibly shaking. I have no idea how that little girl got on the other side of that escalator rail. I don't know if she climbed up from the bottom or climbed over the rail at the top of the escalator. I tend to think that she rode up the wrong side from the bottom, since her mother seemed to be downstairs when it happened. I have been so upset all day by this. When I got into my car after it happened, I burst into tears and couldn't stop shaking. Thankfully, the little girl was ok, but she easily could have been hurt badly or worse. Why don't people watch their children more carefully???