Person Pinned By Train At Union Square Subway Station

The MTA's website says "a police investigation at the 14th Street-Union Square" had caused Woodlawn-bound 4 and Pelham Bay Park-bound 5 trains" to run "local from the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station to the 42nd Street-Grand Central Station" (4/5 express service has since resumed, but with delays). According to some initial reports, the investigation was because a man was pinned by a northbound express train.

A reader wrote us, "I just got off the train at union square. I was coming off the uptown 6 and there was a woman crouched over at the 4,5. She was kneeling next to a man who was basically stuck between the platform and the train. The train was stopped and all you could see was the man's legs. The rest of his body was under the train. This was around, 115. The police were running over with medics and they were trying to figure out how to get him out." Yikes.

The victim, apparently a white male in his 40s, was removed to St. Vincent's Hospital in "post traumatic arrest." We'll update when we know more about his condition.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on December 5, 2009 2:38 PM

Comments [rss]

marta2

maybe he will make it! 'stable condition' sounds promising...still haunted by the image of this yesterday..

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/crushed_by_train_B5l6GvX8oVwJRLhnXl3R7N

TheKlaus

I had to come in to work today, and when I was on the 4,5,6 platform I looked at the express tracks and saw there was sand spread out in a certain area. I walked over to it and looked down and all this blood had seeped through the sand. It was gross and sad. Did he make it?

Minnie

My husband and I were aboard the very train that claimed this guy. We stepped off the train to see what was causing horrified looks on the faces of people standing on the platform, and there he was, just one door over. My husband warned me not to look, but he said there was blood and the man wasn't moving at all. We are surprised that he is even alive after that.

schizofriendly

Fifteen years ago, I saw a middle-aged guy in a suit run down the stairs for the Bedford Avenue Manhattan-bound L-train in the morning rush hour. He slipped into this gaping chasm between the platform and the train as though he was being vacuumed into it. He fell up to his waist. A group of people helped him out. I still can't believe how fast and easily that happened; like in a cartoon.

ocm123

Unfortunately, this is extremely common. On average, it occurs somewhere in the city on a weekly basis.

noir_et_blanc

reading this is very triggering.... my girlfriend collapsed into the D tracks at Herald Square last month after giving blood. She was rescued my a group of men on the platform with 30 seconds to spare...

Guess I hadn't fully grasped the other way that story could have ended until now...*shudders*

maevemealone

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/lastkiss.asp I thought they had said this was more or less true years ago, but anyways, it's a horrifying scenario. This guy seems to have lived through the first part, hope he makes it through the rest.

mellow_fellow

Thanks for that link. I once saw that episode of Confessions and I wondered if the cop (the taxi's passenger) was BSing. Too bad (or should I say, Fortunately) Snopes, apparently, was unable to find a news report of it actually happening somewhere.

jaycjay

That reminds me of something. The Snopes article quotes the show Taxicab Confessions. One of the Homicide: Life on the Street writers said that he saw that episode (that quote was apparently a story a cop who was riding in the cab told on the show) and it's what inspired his version.

marta2

I saw this - was also getting off the 6 right across platform from him. Saw his torso and legs only & fled the scene (he was being attended to already). Completely traumatic. He was not moving - I so hope he survives. Awful, awful, awful. Impossible to imagine how that happened..?? There were a pair of crutches lying on the ground about 30 feet from where he was pinned, no idea if they were his though. Wish I had never seen it. Good luck to him.

Vincent

Since when does the 5 go to Pelham Bay Park?

Jesus... We're gonna trust them for news alerts and they don't even know where their trains go?

Trilby16

There was an episode of (I think) Homicide where something like this happened, except on Homicide the guy was upright in the space between the train and the platform. He was conscious and alert but so smushed by the train that they were pretty sure once he was "freed" he would quickly bleed to death. And he did.

Good luck, Union Square guy.

S_R

Something like that happened years ago at the Broadway-Nassau station on the uptown 4 platform. I walked into the aftermath. It was nightmarish.

I hope the guy who got pinned today pulls through.

JacqueMehoff

that was the infamous vincent da'nofrio episode.

yuppie running for the train and fell, If I recall.

It was all dialog driven, great episode and show.

jaycjay

"that was the infamous vincent da'nofrio episode.

yuppie running for the train and fell, If I recall."

D'Onofrio, in fact, was nominated for an Emmy for that role.

Actually...

[spoiler warning]

in the end, Pembleton arrests a guy for pushing the D'Onofrio character onto the tracks, after the guy admits that he'd been in a psych ward after pushing someone onto subway tracks in Chicago.