Boston Woman Carrying Young Son Tumbles Onto Subway Tracks

[DET63]

A Boston mother holding her 4-year-old son in her arms walked right off a subway platform during rush hour and fell face-first onto the tracks, landing dangerously close to the high-voltage third rail.
Two good Samaritans quickly jumped to the tracks to save her and her son before a train came through the station.

Surveillance video posted onto YouTube captured the woman as she stepped off the platform and took a shocking tumble with her small son onto the tracks Wednesday just before 6 p.m. at Cambridge's Kendall Square Station outside Boston.

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An argument for island rather than side platforms?

 

[Anderson]

"I know I was told to mind the gap, but this is ridiculous!"

(Sorry, this just feels rather Darwin-ish...tripping over the edge, I can see, but just walking off? This is up there with my grandfather backing up into the [depressed] baptismal font of a church one time and going for an unplanned swim.)

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I wonder if she has any vision impairments. That gap is probably big enough to see, you know. Maybe the line of sight was blocked by her child?

 

[amtrakwolverine]

Hard to tell but looked like she was on her cellphone and had just ended the call when she took the plunge.

 

[RRrich]

Kendall Square Station - I used to know it well. Charlie would have been there presently

K3

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Hard to tell but looked like she was on her cellphone and had just ended the call when she took the plunge.

"Pay attention, pay attention even in a subway station or you'll take a plunge!"

 

[DET63]

BART stations with side platforms usually have advertising billboards or other visual clues to tell you that the train you see is not the one you can board from a particular platform. Of course, I'm sure that some people still manage to get confused and attempt to board from the wrong side.