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Man climbs down onto Red Line tracks at Downtown Crossing, stumbles, falls on third rail and dies, police say

WCVB reports on the incident on the Alewife track around 12:30 this morning.

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Comments

Feels like a crime scene in waiting. I never see T-employees including the police on the platforms at night. The news is reporting that one poor guy fell victim to the third rail but two other individuals were transported to the hospital. How many homeless people seek refuge in the station after closing hours and who is responsible for caring for them when the station is locked for the night.

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...is no picnic either. I have been a daily T rider for over 40 years, and until recently never had any fear at any time of day or night at any station. Now I refuse to use Downtown Crossing at all. I get off at Park Street and maneuver from there.

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Agreed! Feels like we’re headed back to the 80s

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… was just looking for a direct and less cold path to the station he wanted?
Headed to a tunnel alcove to sleep the night.
We will likely never know?
Intoxicated or subject to balance issues?

So sad for him, his friends, family and anyone involved in finding him and removing his body. For anyone affected in any way by this death.

A few weeks ago someone fell onto the tracks at Chinatown Station. Probably accidentally but it wasn’t clear.
He was seen by another passenger who alerted the teenager in red jacket who knew how to stop the trains.
I arrived seconds after and saw an approaching Orange Line car slowing and stopping about 75 feet from the guy motionless and sprawled on this back between the rails. He was speaking in a low voice to passengers on the platform. They were reassuring him.

I’ve seen enough horrors in my life, worse than this, but I was sickened. I can’t imagine what the train driver, the guy who fell and the woman who saw it happen all felt.
Be safe, all.

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Maybe 10 yrs ago, when the MBTA staffed all their stations, I alerted T employees about a young woman who was sitting on the platform edge, legs dangling into the pit (whatever it’s called). One made a call that stopped the oncoming train. The other coaxed her away from the edge and kept her from jumping, medics arrived shortly after and led her away, hopefully to get care.

I think of this often these days when I’m waiting for a train at a station with no staff—which is now the norm. I would not know how to stop incoming trains—would you?

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This is what austerity looks like and like always its costs can be measured in human lives.

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in a holder at the end of the platform, and perhaps those are waved to alert the driver. I imagine that reaching out over the tracks and flapping a jacket might work the same.

EDIT: There are also emergency call boxes on many of the platforms. I wonder how many of those work...

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In the trains there are pull boxes. But are there any on platforms?
There should be instructions posted at very least.
In some stations the tracks curve and I think flag waving would be seen too late for the operator to come to a safe stop.
Steve Poftak and Baker style slacker management.

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Use your phone flashlight and start waving it down the tunnel. See if you can get other bystanders to also wave their arms. Definitely send 1-2 bystanders looking for an emergency phone nearby.

The trains are still staffed (for now), so the drivers are going to use their heads seeing a bunch of people panicking and waving lights.

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I think a lot of people seriously do not understand how dangerous the track and tunnels are. It's basically comparable to a busy factory floor full of heavy machinery that can squash you instantly, except also it's poorly lit and with a live third rail.

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As anybody who's been on the site for awhile knows, I love a bad pun as much as anybody, but maybe hold off on the puns on stories about people dying horrible deaths.

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…. have no problem getting ugly and vicious and not even wittily so, in nasty direct attacks on other posters here. Jiggers and Johnboy, in particular.
Hypocrisy.

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.

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Who knew there was a line you could not cross on this platform? I had complete tunnel vision on that one. Anyway, I've lost my train of thought so I am going to disembark from this conversation.

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It wasn’t cruel. We need more humor on this site.

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it was in poor taste and devoid of any kind of empathy.

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If every comment here must now be tasteful and express appropriate empathy ….. or else be deleted, we are surely looking at the future Sahara Desert of online news boards.

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Nobody is saying that every post needs to be full of sunshine and empathy, but in the case of a tragic death, perhaps not posting so irreverent towards the gravity of the situation is the better way to go.
How would you feel if the deceased was a loved-one of yours and somebody just posted something so jocular and without regard to how that may make you feel?
I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe in decorum.

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I had more serious things to think about than comments, meanings and decorum on message boards. We commenters just aren’t all that important a lot of the time.

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