Yahoo Lifestyle 
Entrepreneur loses entire business in one ‘laptop-shattering’ second
A young businessman is warning commuters to be careful with their laptop bags after his $1600 MacBook Pro was completely chewed up by a station escalator.
Philip Bellessort had just launched his own recruitment firm and was travelling home from a client meeting on the London tube.
After getting off at Bond Street, he was travelling up an escalator when he placed his laptop case at his feet.
The 28-year-old heard a crunching noise and realised the bag had been sucked into the escalator steps as they rose.
“At first, I heard the bag tear then I looked down and saw through the hole in the bag that there were some wire bits exposed too,” Philip says.
“I knew then that it wasn't just the bag that had broken. I opened it up and realised it had been torn apart.
“When I picked it up and looked what damage had been done, I was in shock.”
The freak accident tore the bag but also crushed the laptop, twisting the metal and completely destroying the device – including three months of hard work that it contained.
The new business owner lost his contacts, client data and operating systems in one fell swoop and is now having to start over from scratch.
Philipp has now been forced to contact his clients and notify them of the incident after losing all his data needed to do the job.
“All my work is gone. I've lost my files, systems and programs. In recruitment, it's all about CVs that are on the computer and using materials online,” he explains.
“For a small business just starting up $1600 is the cost of two-months' rent for the office, LinkedIn for two months for example. It's two months of operating a business that I need to find to replace my Mac.”
Living with flatmates in London, he is now looking for a way to replace his laptop.
“I started the company three months ago and I've worked for seven days a week, 18 hours a day since then. All that is lost,” he says.
“I feel like I'm being tested. You either laugh or cry but I'm good at taking the view that it is a big problem today but it won't be forever.”
The businessman is hoping to prevent others going through the same thing and wants to warn people that escalators can cause much more damage than they might think.
“When it happened, most people didn't even notice but one woman looked at me in shock. Her jaw dropped,” he says.
With additional reporting by Caters News.
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