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Our decaying infrastructure: T rider almost beaned by plunging fluorescent light

By adamg on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 10:05am

Remains ot the lightRemains of the tube. Photo by Lalunkee.

Lalunkee tweets:

Fluorescent tube at Comm. College Station nearly landed on my head, hit the ground and exploded.

Neighborhoods: 
Charlestown
Topics: 
The T
Free tagging: 
Community College
Orange Line


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Comments

By Ron Newman on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 10:45am.

Fluorescent lights contain mercury, which has now been spilled or vented into the T station.

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By Dan Seitz on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 10:59am.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the T will not get the funding it needs until somebody gets seriously injured or dies.

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By Will LaTulippe on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 12:51pm.

The Ted Tunnel killed a lady. You think our highways have gotten any better? Of course not. We'll all just forget about it. Except for the Victoria Snelgrove thing...that's the only wrongful death that anybody seems to remember.

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By Dan Seitz on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 3:29pm.

Well, there was something resembling legal action and an investigation.

I go to Emerson: we had to hear about it so much somebody put in the men's room: "Why were the Boston Police so effective at Bunker Hill? Because they only fire when they see the whites of their eyes."

Seriously, for about a year after it happened, we got a campus-wide email about it every week and even now it still comes up at least quarterly. It was indeed a terrible tragedy but JESUS.

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By O-FISH-L on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 12:02pm.

If only the tube fell and not the entire fixture, then it sounds more like human error than decay. Par for the course.

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By Jeff F on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 12:49pm.

<rolls eyes>
Fluorescent bulbs fall from fixtures - without immediate human intervention or neglect - all the time, especially in outdoor settings. Temperature changes can cause the fixture to flex/contract/expand and eventually release the bulb. The bulb can also fall if the endcaps corrode. Over the years, I've encountered both of these failure modes multiple times. This is one of the reasons you see bulb guards and diffusers on fixtures like these. In fact, OSHA requires them in most commercial settings.

I'm sure many people who've spent a long period of time in a fluorescently-lit outside space (a barn, garage, warehouse etc) have witnessed similar events.

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By anon on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 3:11pm.

So then we should be asking why there were no bulb guards.

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By Ceasar on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 9:43pm.

shaping up to be a real brawl...toonies vs townies. Got to lov this town

http://charlestown.patch.com/articles/kennedy-cent...

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