February 11, 2004
Woman Killed By Subway
Yesterday afternoon, a 19 year-old woman was killed by an oncoming V train when she climbed down to pick up her cellphone on the subway tracks. After being struck at around 2PM, Lina Villegas was soon pronounced dead at the Grand Avenue station in Elmhurst, Queens. Another person waiting for the subway tried to help her up but was unsuccessful. Subway service was diverted for almost two hours, and a New York City Transit spokeswoman told the Times, "While the instinct may be very strong to climb down when you drop something on the track, obviously don't do it." Apparently, this was the first case of someone being injured while retrieving a cellphone. The Times article also notes various of subway dangers, from the third rail to subway surfing.
Stories like this send shivers down Gothamist's spine. It's human nature to lean over the tracks, to see if the train is finally coming, but it's much better to stand a good two feet or more away from the platform edge. A friend climbed down the tracks to retrieve a ring with a lot of sentimental value, and he narrowly missed being hit; he gave us this advice, "My girlfriend gave me this ring a few years ago, but, honestly, it's not worth it, that train came really fast and I'm lucky I missed it. Sure, my girlfriend would be mad if I lost it, but she'd be happier if I was safe." Gothamist is happier that way, too.
|
Per Jim Knipfel's "Slackjaw", the MTA gives out the following information to blind customers at the orientation/training sessions they hold for them at the Transit Museum:
If you're on the tracks and a train is coming, do not try to climb out, and whatever you do don't try to hide underneath the "lip" of the platform edge: you will be turned into paste. (If you're lucky.) Instead, you should lie down completely flat in the groove between the tracks: there's enough clearance between the ground and the train's undercarriage that as long as you are not morbidly obese you will... probably not be injured.
I make no claim to the actual validity of this information other than that it sounded likely to me, and if you find this idea terrifying, well, good: the really smart thing to do would be to not go down on the tracks in the first place.
um, comforting advice(!)
In his book Subwayland, author Randy Kennedy has a chapter describing how if you drop something on the tracks, you can file a report with the MTA and they will send someone down to look for it under safe circumstances. Some of the stuff people wanted returned seemed very mundane, but the MTA will make an effort to find it for you. Subwayland is a great book and regular NYC riders will likely recognize people and situations Kennedy describes.
It is hindsight but folks, it is just a cell phone. They are giving them away free these days and you get to keep your number. Yes, it will be a pain reprogramming peoples #s (and I don't know any of them beyond their codes so that would be a problem) but it just boggles the mind.
Stories like this always puzzle me. Falling onto the tracks is a tragedy; jumping onto them... ain't too smart.
Is this a "very special" Gothamist? It's, like, only 10 am and I am already freaking out over this story.
i don't mean to make light of this tragedy, but as somebody who depends on the G train to get around, i can't help but think how i could not only climb down on the tracks but also act out Steve Buscemi's entire monolgue from NY Stories without fear of a train arriving.
It's a little public servicey and very "special," but it's a serious issue. A friend's mother fainted and fell in the subway; luckily, people saw her and she was pulled out by fire fighteers. Also, Danny Gregory's wife slipped onto the tracks and a train actually ran over her - it's a miracle she's even alive. I don't think people are conscious of what they're doing when they're waiting for the subway, because many of us view it as sort of this vaccuum, because we're neither here nor there yet.
Crap... this explains all the news vans when I got out of the subway stop. It doesn't surprise me that this happened at my subway stop. People in my 'hood's pretty dumb.
If you know what youre doing, its actually a lot of fun running around in Subway tunnels, especially after a long night of drinking. Your shoes will smell like shit afterwards though.
Last week I watched a guy here (Chicago) climb down to the tracks to retrieve something a woman dropped - though it's very clear 20 seconds beforehand that a train is en route (and death imminent), it would take a pretty ridiculously hot girl for me to even CONSIDER climbing down to those tracks. Moral of the story: chivalry may not be dead, but you could be. NB: It was apparent post-retrieval that the two were not previously acquainted.
Perhaps she had one of those snazzy color phones with polyphonic ringtones and a built-in webcam.
I 've got to admit I actually did this once about two years ago. I dropped my palm phone stylus getting off the F train at 7th Avenue in Park Slope during a pub crawl late one night. Yes, it's very sad that I actually play with my palm phone while out socializing. I claim Vindigo addiction. Anyway, in my addled state I rationalized that since the train had just left the station and an oncoming train would be visible in the tunnel from some distance, it was perfectly safe to go down and retrieve it. Not the smartest thing to do. The friend who pulled me out after I got it then told me that he had lost his blackberry in the tunnel and had been perfectly happy to leave it there.
The answer is clear: The MTA just needs to buy a whole bunch of those grabby-hands-on-a-stick that they have in every deli for grabbing a roll of toilet paper from the perilously unbalanced stack up on top of the freezer case. During long train waits, waiting passengers can play "Pinch the Mice" to pass the time.
patgav -- oh, come on. everyone knows there are only like two F trains in the city. if a train had just left the station, you could've probably found a few other palm styli, set up shop on the tracks and sold them before another F train came around.
by the way, in time out new york's "new yorker quiz" a few months back, it mentioned how "real new yorkers" have plans for just such occasions when something valuable is dropped on the tracks. just so i know: it's the far rail that's electrified, right?
I've dropped my cell phone on the tracks TWICE. The first time, the MTA actually returned it to me. The second time, no such luck.
When I was in HS I jumped onto the track to get something I dropped, but today, you would need a crane to drag me out.
We should take a lesson from Japan. Not only do they take better care of their cell phones, when their train DOES hit somebody, it's back up and running in like 12 minutes.