Subway Conductor Mysteriously Injured

Somehow, a subway conductor was injured last night. Another MTA employee saw a conductor on a southbound Q train in Brooklyn slumped over his cab's window. The conductor's skull and left arm was injured, and lost his right eye. The MTA says that the conductor lost contact with the train operator after announcing the Kings Highway stop at 9:30PM, and was only discovered at Avenue U. The current theory is that the conductor could have been injured if he didn't pull his head inside in time and was hit by something, although the conductor could have been assaulted by someone on the platform.

Photograph of conductor's compartment from Joe Schumacher; he says that the conductor's area wasn't air-conditioned, therefore the door was opened

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By Jen Chung in News on July 14, 2005 7:18 AM

Comments [rss]

Jack

"Avid Q Train Rider", how could the left side of his body be attacked when that's the side towards the window on the platform he'd be leaning out of.

If he were attacked in the cab, I would assume his right side would be vulnerable at that point?

Unless he was attacked when switching over to the right-hand side of the train for Avenue U. And if that was the case, where would the attacker go? The doors weren't opened at Avenue U--which is why the motorman investigated what was up--the attacker would have still been on the train.

Jack

If you know the Q train, it's clear that something happened on the platform, not in the cab as Will implies. Let's not jump to conclussions.

If th Q train is headed to Coney Island and the next stop is Avenue U, it's local and would be on the local track with doors opening on the left-hand side. Thus, the left side of his body would be on the window side of the cab. Which means that he got hit by something on the platform when it pulled out of the King's Highway station or someone hit him from the platform.

I bet something on the platform hit him as that's an above ground station, and there's always a lot of stuff of some sort going on at the south end of the platform.

Sad. And I hope the guy pulls through.

Will

I am constantly seeing train operators blocking their doors open as they drive... is this always because the cabs aren't air conditioned? I suppose that there's only so much damage one could do if they hijacked a train, but it seems like the TA would want to avoid this huge security hole, especially in the wake of the recent talk about how vulnerable subway systems are.