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Wednesday Happenings
Last night, leaving the Celtics game, we saw a woman come an inch away from death. It was on the inbound Orange Line platform at North Station. We had missed a train and had to wait an interminable 15 minutes before the next train arrived, so we were relieved when the Worflike voice of the T announced "The next Orange Line train to Forest Hills is now approaching." The lights of the oncoming train shined through the tunnel.
And then a woman fell on the tracks.
We're not sure how it happened, but she fell and she hit her head. She tried to stand but fell back onto the tracks and started flailing, coming perilously close to the third rail. Half the people on the platform, panicking, yelled at her, telling her to be still. The other half waved their hands at the oncoming train, begging it to stop. The woman stopped moving. The train, still coming, let out an irritated klaxon at all the people standing on the yellow line. Then the conductor saw what everybody was pointing at. Then the train slowed.
It was like a movie. The train stopped inches away from the woman's unstirring body, the frontmost part actually hanging over her. For a nauseating moment, we thought she had been killed—by the train or by the third rail. The conductor burst out of the front train compartment, the color draining from her face, repeating "Oh my God." The crowd exploded with applause like she was Ray Allen and she had just scored a wide open three pointer. The woman on the tracks crawled gingerly out, stumbled around some more, and was pulled to safety by some passengers before being taken away by MBTA cops. The conductor got yet another round of applause as she pulled the train into the station. Having nearly killed somebody, she didn't look like she appreciated it that much.
Surreally, the passengers on the train had no idea what had just happened. A woman on the platform had nearly lost her life—and the rest of us our lunch—but for the passengers on the train, it was just the T screwing up again.
Onboard, a guy sitting next to us asked "Why aren't we going anywhere yet?"
"A woman almost got hit by the train."
"She die?" he asked.
"Nope. Came pretty close."
"So, a woman almost died," he said. "That means everything's normal. Why can't they move this freaking train?"
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I was there too. I was on the other side of the tracks waiting for the train to Oak Grove. I was at the end, directly across from where it happened. I saw the person (I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman) go down into the tracks. My son was quite traumatized by seeing this.
It almost looked to me like the person jumped, but you probably had a better view. There was an old guy screaming at the train and frantically waiving his arms trying to get the conductor's attention.
Does the T have a Police log online? How can I find out what happened? Was this an attempted suicide? A drunk? What?
From my vantage point, it didn't look like suicide. When she fell, I thought she was having a seizure. Others who were a few feet closer thought she was drunk. When the T police took her away, she said she had tripped.
It's frustrating and embarrassing how callous Boston commuters can get. On Thursday a high-schooler was struck and killed in Belmont by the Fitchburg commuter-train and all the uptight businessmen on that night's train could do was complain about how the train is "always late" and why they don't raise the rates to accommodate better maintenance. When I told them why the train was late, they just stared at me blankly, like it made no difference. Sometimes this is one sick town. Where is our humanity??!!!
And could it be possible she wasn't actually drunk or suicidal, but just ill and fell by accident? sheesh. You gotta have a strong constitution to take public transportation nowadays, or god help you, you'll be blamed for whatever happens to you.
I called the T police and they said they weren't at liberty to discuss this. They suggested that I check the Boston newspapers.
Does anybody know how to find out what happened here?
There are now some more details here: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/21550286/detail.html
this is crazy. i'll admit to being annoyed at T delays from time to time, but i think if they made the cause clearer there might be less disturbance. it's just not knowing that sets people on edge. i could be wrong though.
Her last words would have been to me. I was waiting at the end of the platform to make sure I would get on the subway after the Celts game. She walked past me and asked "Are you going to be mad if I smoke a cigarette? I will go all the way to end."
I said I didn't care and she walked all the way to the end. But she stood at the edge by the tunnel on the yellow line. I remember I heard the first ding of the "orange line is approaching." I finished a text message telling my buddy I ran into the big guy who was dancing on the jumbotron all night. Then I hear people screeming as I watched her take her last steps before diving into the pit. It was not suicide. She clearly lost her balance and was too drunk to recover. However, nobody was close enough to grab her as she was trying not to get smoke on anyone. She was all by herself. No friends with her before or after the incident.
I've been pissed at myself all weekend for not doing anything else. I feel like if the lights of the subway weren't on us, I could have pulled her out of there, but there was no time. The train was there withing 10-15 seconds of her falling in. She laid down so that the subway would go under her, but I've always been highly skeptical that someone could actualy fit under there. I just don't think the train is built that way. Maybe she was just too drunk to get up.
It all went by so fast. I figured I would need to have someone hold onto me if I tried to pull her out with my arm. The tracks are just so deep at that station, I would have no leverage. In the end, there was just no time. I 100% thought I was going to have someone die right in front of me. It was the scarriest moment. People were running away and screaming. I saw women crying.
I can't believe the girl is alive. I couldn't get any sleep Friday night over this. This is a situation I can't even handle in a movie, let alone right in front of me. Great job by the conductor, as she had almost no time to react.
I just found all the video and I am right in the middle of all the clips. There was only 10 seconds to react. The people waving their arms on the yellow line really helped.
quite an unfortunate experience all the way around.
The video made BBC news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8352198.stm