Posted on 10/16/2009 6:51:27 PM PDT by naturalman1975
CCTV footage of a baby's miracle escape when a pram was slammed by a peak-hour train has been released.
Witnesses at a suburban Melbourne station feared the worst but were stunned when the six-month-boy was hauled from the tracks with little more than a bump on his head.
The near-miss happened at Ashburton station as a city-bound train pulled into the station just after 4pm yesterday.
The baby was strapped into a three-wheeler pram that rolled forward and toppled on to the tracks.
The pram was carried 30 metres as the desperate driver tried to pull up the 250-tonne train. It ploughed into the pram at about 35km/h, dragging the child along beneath the front carriage.
Witnesses watched in horror, fearing the baby had no hope.
But he was safely back in his mother's arms when ambulance officers arrived minutes later.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldsun.com.au ...
I think I would have had a heart attack on the spot.
I’m wondering why the train platform has such a decided slope towards the tracks and no safety curb of any kind.
Can you imagine telling the kid the story latter on in life.
“Yes honey, when you were little you got run over by a train”.
or is it another hoax?
Most platforms have a slight slope so rain water can run off.
No, it’s real. Definitely.
yeeesh! that would worry me too. prams would not be the only thing in danger of going on to the tracks, and an object on the tracks could well upset the train.
near-miss
sigh
So make it spill to the side, or even backwards through a perforated grill.
I saw the video earlier... a heartstopping moment to be sure. I cannot imagine what that mom went through in those moments. Wow. Miracle that the kid is unhurt.
I do take issue with the title, a bit. Yes of course it seems miraculous... but to say that “God was with” this one would seem to imply that God wasn’t “with” other children that die in accidents. I’d be careful about going there, seems to me.
There are certainly arguments to be made for a different solution - but these stations were built over a century ago, and accidents of this type are extremely rare.
Adding a curb, or a gate that only opens for stopped trains, would be another option. I could see this happening to a wheelchair.
One would think in a moment of lucidity the engineers who designed it asked themselves what would happen should a small unsecured wheeled device such as a baby carriage were on the platform, but apparently not.
My uncle, my grandmothers first child was struck by a train and killed when he was 2 years old. My grandfather took the horse and buggy out, my grandmother didn't know he'd left the gate open. She put the baby out back, the train tracks were just up the street. He toddled out to the tracks and was hit and killed.
Over the decades, a variety of different train designs have run on this network, with doors in different locations. Currently there are four models of train in service with two different door configurations. There are 200 stations on the network. Automated gates would either need to be redesigned every time a new type of train is introduced, or trains would have to be limited to a particular door design, reducing available choices. To deal with a type of accident that is extremely rare.
This video was hard to watch. Thank God the child is ok. Wow.
WOW. The mother was clearly horrified. Can’t imagine what she was feeling. Glad it worked out OK.
Or wheelchairs.
God was, but the mother sure wasn’t.
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