After changing my shoes to catch my homeward train, I step back out onto the platform to tell the assembled multitudes they have 11 minutes till their train A terrible sight meets my eyes. A line of people are on the platform’s edge and there are several others including two children on the tracks. A pram is being lifted up from the pit. Oh my God! A pram has rolled off the platform and fallen on to the tracks
I lunge at the red button and scream “Stop the trains. Child in the pit.” Fortunately the control room crew are on the ball. They do their part without question. I race to the platform’s edge and yell and reassure people the train is 10 minutes away and help people pull people out of the pit. The two children, both under 12, race to the pedestrian crossing to get out. The platform walls are as tall as they are. Everyone is terrified. The 18 month old child who was strapped the pram when it rolled onto the track is wailing hysterically. Possibly indicating it is ok. The incident is over in a couple of minutes.
The family – its one of those big school holiday families with three women and countless (about 8) kids, all running here and there – refuse an ambulance and also refuse to give their names. I suspect they are afraid of getting into trouble. Someone left the brake off the pram and given the slope of the platform, designed thus to shed rain water, it rolled away. No judgement here. With lots of kids, mothers get distracted.
The child does seem unhurt. It yells and yells – plenty air in those lungs. Then exhausted, it falls asleep. A man brings his little boy over to see the child. The boy saw the pram go over the edge and needs reassuring the little one is ok. Later someone says to me I’m lucky I missed the actual incident. It would stay in your mind that pram dropping over the edge. I suspect they are right. I’ve seen awful things in station work, fist fights over parking and over drugs, people threatening suicide, domestic abuse. But I’ve never been so close to tears before.
Glad you missed seeing the worst of it, and what a dangerous situation for you too. I hope a platform re-design will be part of any future projects to improve your rail infrastructure.
Wow Jane, that is amazing and scary. And also kind of obvious that it could happen. Life can turn around in a second!