A TWO-year-old boy had his armed ripped off by an escalator in a shopping centre.

His mum “briefly lost sight” of the tot as he went on the moving staircase which then “chewed” and severed his right hand and lower arm.

He was rushed to hospital but doctors failed to reattach his arm after the horrific accident.

Authorities are now investigating how the bloody injury happened – and have even opened a criminal case.

It is reported his mum took his eyes off him for a brief moment – in which the boy bent down and put has hand into the escalator mechanism.

A pharmacist named Anastasia, who rushed to his aid at Botanica shopping centre in Yekaterinburg, Russia, said: “I heard screams, ran over, and saw a boy standing there with his arm torn off.

“There wasn’t much blood, basically, his arm [up to the elbow]  was in the escalator.”

The tragic boy was “crying….he was conscious”.

A man “put a tourniquet on his arm” as paramedics rushed to the scene.

He said: “I heard the mother screaming.

“I saw the child standing there without an arm. I applied a tourniquet, then we bandaged him up. 

“We waited for the ambulance and retrieved the arm. 

“The child….didn’t lose consciousness — he held on until the very end.”

Anastasia added: “I gave the ambulance ice to transport the [severed limb].”

Attempts by doctors to reattach the failed because of the damage it suffered, said reports. 

His distraught dad said: “Our son is in intensive care, we are not allowed to see him yet.

“But we know he has been brought out of a medically induced coma.”

He said: “I wasn’t there at the time — I was rushing from work. 

“My wife was alone with the two children. 

When I arrived, we were trying together to get [his severed arm] out together

Dad

“I still don’t fully understand how it happened. 

“When I arrived, we were trying together to get [his severed arm] out together.

“We pulled it from the side of the escalator, from the compartment where all sorts of rubbish falls. 

“It got stuck somewhere. 

“Half of the escalator was dismantled under the handrail on the right side. 

“Most likely, he put his hand on the step and it folded in.”

Another account said the mother “was holding the child’s hand when he squatted down and put his hand into the escalator”.

The Russian Investigative Committee was questioning eyewitnesses as part of a criminal case.