Over the past few months, news stories about 12-9s — train/person collisions — have taken center stage as the TWU has tried to turn it into a fight over train speeds and their current contract situation. Coverage of these collisions, whether caused by suicides, homicides or accident, has proliferated lately even as the impact to an individual’s personal safety remains somewhere between negligible and non-existent.
But what of the other side of the story? What of the people who wind up in the tracks to help an unfortunate person who may be in danger after an accidental fall? What’s it like to be in the path of an incoming train? Recently, at Bowling Green, Victor Samuel experienced just that as he hopped into the track bed to help a man who had fallen. He shared his story with The Times. I’ll excerpt:
I looked down the tunnel – we were at the uptown end of the uptown track – and saw a train coming. I gauged that I had a little bit of time and, without thinking any further, placed my right hand on the platform and jumped down. I didn’t anticipate the uneven surfaces below, and fell. I heard gasping and screaming from above. Looking down the tunnel at the circular train lights, growing larger, I felt very small, vulnerable and terrified. I had lost time. I got up, put my hand on the man’s back and guided him a couple of steps toward the platform. Then I bolted toward the platform myself. I had to get out of there.
I’m 6 feet tall. The platform was maybe 5 feet high. I placed both hands on it, bent my legs and propelled myself up with all the strength I could muster. I felt my knees bang the underside of the platform. My torso and waist were above the platform but I could not lift my knees and legs up there. I dropped down and jumped up again. Again my knees stung as they smacked the underside of the platform.
At this point, as I held my position – upper body above the platform, legs dangling below, glancing to my right at the approaching train – time slowed down. I forgot all about the stumbling man…I knew I didn’t have much time. I made sure to concentrate, not to lift my knees too early. I put my hands on the platform and launched myself again.
Samuel said his mind filled with fears of an impending impact as the train hurried into the station, but the operator was able to slow down just enough to give the two men opportunity to make it back to the platform. It’s not anything I would ever like to experience.
The MTA has been tight-lipped about track survival. They can’t readily give out advice because they don’t want anyone in the track in the first place. Some people say run in the direction the train is heading; others say to find shelter; others say jump. But it’s a larger gap between the track bed and platform edge than most people realize. Any way you look at it, though, subway tracks are a dangerous place.
12 comments
Wow. I think I stopped breathing reading Victor Samuel’s account. Heroic act.
I’ll support platform gates when they install barriers on every sidewalk and gates at every crosswalk. In the last two weeks, there have been more pedestrians struck by cars than there have been persons struck by trains this year.
Amen, Hank. I’d even say put’em in at key stations where it makes the most sense. But your point stands that it makes little sense to invest billions into solving a problem that is not widespread when there are much more useful things that scarce capital dollars could be used for.
We lack so much perspective in the US because of the way teevee and the other media sensationalise these unfortunate incidents in the subway.
I’ll support platform gates on every sidewalk once countdown pedestrian signals, accessible ramps and other MUTCD compliant things become standardised for NYC streets.
Anyway, at a sidewalk, you can just cross anywhere. You can’t just fall anywhere on the subway.
This is a despicable logic.
It would be like saying costly and expensive measures destined to improve elevator safety on buildings are wrong because more people hurt themselves on slippery wet sidewalks.
Or, if we want to keep the discussion within transportation, one could argue that money spent to make air travel operations safer is wasted because their injury and death rate per mile-passenger is so low that money is better spent making cycling lanes safer instead.
Safety of all systems should be improved. Improving safety of subway should be paramount, regardless of whether are there better uses for the money. We are in incredibly risk averse society, and rightfully so, and should spend the billions it takes to fit NYC subway with platform doors (which in turn opens an enormous opportunity for full-automation of trains and the elimination of the conductor-driver union overpaid workforce from MTA in the long term).
If the trackbed doesn’t have cross-beams (or whatever they’re called), then run away from the train. If it does, you’re kind of screwed, because trying to run will almost certainly result in tripping.
I’ve also heard that if you’re on the platform you should try to run toward the train and get the operator’s attention, though depending how the crowded the platform is that could be a recipe for more people falling on the tracks.
Railroad sleepers?
Track Ties*
Cross-ties, tie blocks (or just ties)
There was a related story about not one, but three people in the trackbed (one fell and two tried to help him) as a F train was approaching a station a few days ago. They only survived because a TA worker shut off the emergency power.
Maybe they should have emergency power cutoff in stations, to prevent incidents like this. I think they already have levers for that purpose in the Mexico City Metro.
I’ve read a poster on the subway a few times lately – one stating the statistics on 12-9s – and, if I recall correctly, the data says that out of 141 events last year, there were 55 fatalities.
The purpose of the poster seemed to be to warn people not to chase their fallen iPhone onto the tracks – but the takeaway for me was quite different, and I can’t help but wonder if there was another demographic it should target – namely, potential suicides.
55 out of 141, or, looked at the other way, 86 survivors.
That means that there was a 61% survival rate – which would make it a TERRIBLE way to attempt a suicide! Anybody who thought their life was so miserable that they wanted to end it should know that death by train was anything but a sure thing. And if a person felt their life was so unbearable they had to end it, just imagine how they would feel after getting hit by a train.
The anti-smoking forces in this country bring us posters of amputees and other disabled people. How long will it be before we see the testimony of someone maimed beyond recognition, telling us the subway is not a substitute for Dr. Kevorkian?