The Gruesome L Train Incident: Solved
What exactly happened on the L train—NYC's most cool subway line—today? Earlier we heard rumors of a suicide. We got a bunch of tips. And just before we went to put up this post, we saw this.
1010 Wins says a dead body was found on the tracks. No word on whether or not it was the result of a suicide. But we'll go ahead and post all these tips, just to illustrate how messed up a city can get by one single incident...
These videos are not the most enthralling things ever. Watch them if you will. But we got this report from a person on the train in the video:
The L train stopped underground between the Bedford and the 1st Avenue station around 10:44a.m.- give a few minutes here or there. Being just prior to 1st avenue, we waited underground for 15 minutes if that, and moved a couple of inches every few minutes. The announcement was then stated that we were to be evacuated onto a train in front of our own... I'm assuming that it was backed up into the tunnel to provide a link for us to arrive at 1st avenue by foot. The train operator having come out from the conductors closet told another passenger that "no, someone isn't sick... it's an injury". This was my first understanding of what had caused us to halt the transit. When we all had quietly and patiently (I felt quite in awe by the patience of the crowd) onto the 1st avenue platform we came upon a grouping of New York's finest, all guarding the first train car. There were stretchers and such. I couldn't say for sure if someone was laid out on the seat in the first train car, nor if they were alive, though that was the glimpse of things, and based on assumption that someone was injured, it seemed that car was providing the medical and emergency assistance either he or she required. We stepped above ground just after 11am.
And, we heard from another L train rider who told a similar story about going to work this morning—probably on that very same train:
I was riding on it, toward the back of the train. Train slows down,
then just stops. The front cars reached the First Avenue platform, the
back cars—where I was—were still in the tunnel. After a couple of
minutes of delay, they said there had been an "injury" to a passenger
and we would have to all evacuate. Anyway, since the back of the train
wasn't even at the platform, we all had to walk toward the middle of
the train and get off there. We were at the far end of the platform
and had to walk down.We got off, and then it was all crazy. Dozens and dozens of firemen
(carrying axes, which was particularly odd) and lots of police
officers.They had a gurney laid out near the front of the train, but again, had
no idea what happened from there
How bad was it? Another L train passenger tells us that much later, everything was still totally fucked: "I was actually one of the hundreds of people waiting for the L to arrive at 1st Ave, around 12:30. The station was open, and there hadn't been any announcement over the loudspeaker, but they didn't have that countdown to the next arrival displayed. Then there was an announcement on the screen that usually displays the next arrival, saying there was an investigation at 1st Ave. But I didn't see any cops, paramedics, or anything on the tracks or anything like that."