(The following story by Deborah S. Morris appeared on the Newsday website on July 5.)
NEW YORK — A 6-year-old boy exiting a Long Island Rail Road train at the Babylon station fell through a gap between the train and platform.
The unidentified boy was leaving the 7:39 p.m. train from Penn Station at about 8:55 p.m. Tuesday, accompanied by his mother, his 8-year-old sister and his grandmother, railroad spokeswoman Susan McGowan said yesterday. An MTA police officer was standing on the platform a few feet away and immediately pulled the boy back up to safety, McGowan said.
The officer observed scrapes on the boy’s knees and chin and the child was taken by ambulance to Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip as a precaution, McGowan said. He was treated and released.
None of the family members, all visiting from North Carolina, could be reached for comment. The railroad did not disclose their names.
“This incident underlines the need for parents to always hold their children’s hand when boarding or exiting a train,” McGowan said.
A Newsday investigation found that the LIRR has logged almost 900 incidents related to platform gaps since 1995.
Since the death of a Minnesota teenager at the Woodside LIRR station last August, the LIRR has addressed about 80 percent of the system’s 154 widest gaps by moving tracks, bolting boards to platform edges and keeping some train doors closed.
This week the parent Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced it is abandoning the idea of installing mechanical gap fillers at the Syosset station after a study concluded that the $72-million project would be lengthy, risky and pricey.
But the railroad does plan to step up awareness about the gap. A campaign for safety is set to begin soon.
The ads will appear several times this summer in Newsday and in Spanish-language newspapers, an MTA report said. The railroad also plans to work with the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to better highlight the gap hazard in rider education materials, the report said.