While the MBTA told BostInno they don’t keep an official tally of the number of people who fall from T platforms at station stops and plummet to the tracks below, they might want to start considering it.
In what seems to be a strange trend—or odd coincidence— videos have been released of five different individuals falling on to the train tracks in various Red Line stations since June of this year.
Luckily, in all of the circumstances, passengers standing by were quick to lift the victims out of the Red Line pits and to safety, and no trains were in the area at the time of any of the reported incidents.
In the latest slip and fall, on November 10, a 44-year-old woman walked off the platform at Andrew Station. According to T officials, the woman did not make contact with the third rail when she landed in the pit.
“She was assisted off the tracks by a customer. She was taken to [Boston Medical Center] for a minor leg injury,” said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo.
Just a few days earlier, on November 3, a 29-year-old Boston woman, who bystanders said was “nodding” and “stumbling” around, walked straight off of the platform at the Broadway T station and landed on the tracks below.
According to Transit Police reports officers were called to the Red Line stop after the victim fell into the pit on the Northbound side. Red Line service was suspended as officers responded to the call. Officials said the woman was “lethargic” and suffered minor injuries.
Less than one month prior to that incident on the Red Line tracks, on October 15, Red Line riders were quick to react when a 54-year-old woman from Minnesota fell off the platform at Kendall Square Station and landed on the train tracks below.
According to MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo, the woman was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital with minor back pains following the incident, which occurred around 6:48 p.m.
In the video, the victim can be seen talking to someone as she walks along the platform too close to the edge. At one point the woman appears to lose her footing and slip off the side.
In August, the MBTA released footage of another slip and fall on the tracks, after a woman who thought she could board a Red Line train docked on the opposite side of the platform took a spill into the pit with her child in her arms.
According to the MBTA, the Attleboro mother and her 4-year-old son were sent to the hospital for evaluation after she fell onto the tracks trying to board a train at the MIT/Kendall Red Line Station.
Pesaturo said the incident occurred just before 6 p.m. on a Wednesday, on the southbound Red Line platform.
The mother told an MBTA Red Line Inspector that she had seen a train berthed on the northbound platform and believed she could board it from the south bound side, according Pesaturo.
Lastly, over the summer, in June, a Florida man fell onto the Red Line tracks at Central Station in Cambridge after walking off the southbound platform and dropping into the pit below.
The out-of-town rider, who avoided hitting the third rail, was quickly pulled out of the dangerous area by his wife and others, according to Pesaturo.
“The man said he fell into pit when he attempted to reach the northbound train (on the opposite track). He said he mistakenly believed the Alewife-bound train was the one he wanted,” Pesaturo said in an email.
At the time of the accident, the man was transported to Mt. Auburn Hospital after his fall for elbow and back pains.
