A CUSTOMER has demanded an apology from Tesco after her getting her arm trapped in a lift door which later turned out to be broken.
Lisa Mellors, 45, says the supermarket has behaved "outrageously" by breaking health and safety guidelines at its new-look Purley store and then ignoring her accident.
"I work for the Alzheimer's Society so I know exactly how organisations have to run their health and safety and Tesco failed on this abysmally," she said.
"I was in the new-look Tesco with a friend who is not able to use the escalators so we went to use the customer lift.
"We walked in, pressed the button and the doors closed behind us. However, the lift didn't move and just sat there with the doors closed.
"We started to get a bit nervous so I pressed a button to open the doors so we could get out.
"They opened so I walked out first with a basket of shopping on my arm.
"Suddenly the doors closed and clamped my arm, trapping it. Normally they open automatically again but these doors didn't and kept trapping my arm for what felt like ages."
When the doors released Ms Mellors, she walked around near the lift to see if there were any signs.
"Around the corner on a piece of paper sellotaped to the wall was a note saying 'out-of-order'," she said.
"I know from my charity work where we can so easily be sued, that the note completely defied health and safety rules. How were we to see it?"
Ms Mellors went to hospital to have her arm X-rayed. It was not broken but had suffered quite serious cushion wounds.
When the customer reported the incident to Tesco head office, she was told she would receive a call the next day.
She said: "It's now two weeks later and I have had complete silence. I even hand delivered a letter to the store's manager a few days after the accident and have also had no reply.
"It's absolutely outrageous – they have no care for customers. I'm really shocked.
"All I want is an apology and an explanation as to why, in their new make-over, they had a broken lift and had not followed the health and safety rules."
A Tesco spokesman said: "We were very concerned to learn of this incident and are sorry that Ms Mellors felt that we didn't take it seriously.
"Our store manager has contacted her directly to apologise and will be writing to her to outline the action we have taken.
"The lift has now been fixed and we apologise to all of our customers for any inconvenience caused."
