Total Injury

The severity of gap-related New York train accidents has been detailed here in the past, and an incident last week was just another example of the concern with the gaps between loading platforms and Long Island Rail Road trains. A woman boarding a train after attending a Rod Stewart concert luckily avoided potentially fatal personal injuries when getting stuck in a gap right before a train departed. This incident occurred just hours after a Senate hearing grilled LIRR and its parent company, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, on both company’s lack of action in preventing gap train accidents which had been occurring for more than 30 years. Just last summer, a Minnesota teen was killed in a train accident in which she fell into a gap and was hit by an oncoming train.

The latest gap train accident occurred at New York’s Penn Station. 47-year-old Lisa Ehrlich and her husband Richard had just attended the concert at Madison Square Garden when they went to board a train. Lisa Ehrlich said in a Newsday story that she went to step on the train with her left foot. While saying that she thought she stepped wide enough to get on the train, Ehrlich added that before she knew it, her hand was touching the bottom of the train floor and her left leg was in the gap. Ehrlich admitted that she thought she was “done.” Luckily, her husband, who was already on the train, came to her rescue before the train began to move.

Mrs. Ehrlich said that she was confused immediately after the incident, but did complain in the story that LIRR train conductors did not know how to handle the situation. According to a LIRR spokeswoman quoted in the story, the conductors handled the situation correctly by offering her medical attention and giving her an accident report to fill out. Ehrlich said that she declined medical attention on the scene but did suffer bruises on her left shin and hip. It is unknown whether Mrs. Ehrlich will take any legal action in the future.