On Thursday (13 June) a netizen by the name Francesco Mikhail highlighted an accident involving an elderly man at MRT Newton to TOC via our Facebook page.
It appears that at about 10.05am yesterday, a senior who was boarding his train at MRT Newton fell and got his leg trapped between the train and platform.
Mr Mikhail who was at the scene wrote, “I got off the south bound train at Newton MRT this morning. Saw an elderly gentleman who was entering the train and he fell and his leg got trapped in between the platform and train.”
Upon witnessing this situation, many commuters around the man, including Mr Mikhail, came to his aid. They pressed the emergency button multiple times, hoping the doors will stay open so they can free the senior’s leg.
However, the doors were not halted forcing the netizen to use his “body to prevent the doors from closing on his (elderly man’s) leg”.
During the process, Mr Mikhail’s arm was injured as the door shut on him twice before opening again.
Although he noted that he was doing fine, but he wondered what would have happened to the senior’s leg if he didn’t use his body to stop the door from shutting.
“If the force of the door was strong enough to cause abrasions on my arm, how about the poor guy on the floor?” he questioned.
As such, he asked, “Why did the doors shut when the emergency button was pressed? Isn’t there a security feature or protocol to prevent this?”
After the incident, Mr Mikhail told TOC that he had brought up this matter to SMRT via their Facebook page and even rang them for a response.
A staff of SMRT told him that “they will revert in 2 weeks after they investigate”. The corporation also replied him via Facebook and noted that they will look into this matter as the safety of their passengers are important to them.
Just in April this year, a young woman’s leg was caught in the gap between the train and the platform at Buona Vista SMRT station.
Detailing the incident in a Facebook post, a commuter said the train was full of passengers who were rushing to get out of the train. The lady was caught in the flow of bodies, pushed, and fell. Her right leg was caught in the gap and stuck right up to her knee. In his post, he commented about the apparent lack of first aid knowledge by the SMRT staff. He noted that the first SMRT staff on scene arrived 45 seconds after the incident while the second arrived more than a minute later. He also said that there was no mention of even calling for an ambulance until more than 10 minutes later, which he felt was ‘far too slow’.
SMRT confirmed the event via local media but did not respond to the complaint on the response of the staff. In this incident, the doors were kept open after the emergency button was pressed.
TOC has reached out to SMRT for comments.
