Mind the Gap: Another Brilliant Performance by the MTA

Witnessed this morning at the Prospect Park station around 8:50am: a woman exiting the Manhattan-bound B train slipped and fell, causing her leg to fall into the gap between the train and the platform. The leg appeared to be brutally broken after a loud crack heard by a number of passengers. An unfortunate and terrible accident to be sure, and we hope she recovers quickly and with as little pain as possible.

What really disturbed me, aside form the amount of pain this woman appeared to be in, is the MTA's apparent mishandling of the situation. The train was delayed until an emergency response team could assist (so far, so good).  After 15 minutes, no EMTs had arrived on the scene. Here's where it gets really good: the B train was then taken out of service, forcing all passengers to spill out onto an already crowded platform. Adding insult to injury, the Q train behind us was rerouted to the Coney Island-bound platform and also taken out of service. Those passengers, having received no directions other than to leave the train, headed over to the Manhattan-bound platform, now packed like a tin of sardines and pushing towards the location of the accident. I headed out on the S train at about 9:15 so I'm not sure when the EMTs finally arrived, but let's just say it was much later than it should have been, and they were faced with a heck of an obstacle course.

Lessons learned: (1) be careful of the gap when entering/leaving the train, and (2) don't ever, ever get injured on NYC transit (partnered with, of course, don't get sick on NYC transit). Lawsuit pending? We expect so.

Comments

[brn442]

I've seen London style "mind the gap" signs recently put up in stations, I figured it was probably on the advice of MTA council.

Typical MTA, instead of spending a few thousand up front on signs to " cover their a..ses", they wait till someone sues.

At least they did put emergency gates in all of their stations after trying to unsuccessfully convince the public the previous ones weren't death traps waiting to happen.

[Jeanne]

That's awful. One evening I saw a young child slip, fall and get his foot stuck in the gap on the B/Q Coney Island bound platform. Fortunately his mother was able to pull him loose before the train started again. So he lost only a shoe not his foot. The gap there is HUGE. They can put up all the "mind the gap" signs they want and people will still accidentally get their feet in the gap simply because it's so big. I agree the signs are there just to cover their a*ses.