A woman getting off Boston’s Orange Line last week fell and trapped her leg in the gap between the platform and the train until her fellow passengers were able to free her. The woman was getting off the train at Massachusetts Avenue station on Friday afternoon and stepped into a five-inch gap and got her leg stuck. The video of the woman from Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police (MBTA) Police Department went viral over the weekend. Despite being in agony, the 45-year-old woman, whose name hasn’t been released, begged bystanders who came to her aid to not call an ambulance because she couldn’t afford it.
“Do you know how much an ambulance costs?” the injured woman asked one passenger. The story picked up on Twitter when Boston Globe reporter Maria Cramer posted about the incident after witnessing the aftermath of the accident on Friday. The story picked up more traction when The New York Times editorial board wrote about the platform accident on Monday with the headline: ‘This Tweet Captures the State of Health Care in America Today.’
Viral Video of Boston Train Incident
The video shows how the fellow passengers gathered to push the train off the woman’s leg. They succeeded in freeing the woman after a dozen of them managed to move the train enough for her leg to escape. The woman suffered serious laceration, exposing the bone on her left thigh.
Boston Globe Reporter’s Tweet About the Incident
Awful scene on the orange line. A woman’s leg got stuck in the gap between the train and the platform. It was twisted and bloody. Skin came off. She’s in agony and weeping. Just as upsetting she begged no one call an ambulance. “It’s $3000,” she wailed. “I can’t afford that.”
— Maria Cramer (@GlobeMCramer) June 29, 2018
Suffering a deep laceration, the unidentified woman’s leg was left ‘twisted and bloody’ according to Maria Cramer, who witnessed the incident. The incident occurred around 5:30 pm on Friday during rush hours, according to police report. Cramer also tweeted, “When I saw her sitting on the platform, she was shaking, crying, in terrible pain and very scared about what this injury would do to her financially.” According to the police reported by the Globe, the woman was eventually taken to the hospital shortly after the incident and would need surgery.
The chief of Boston EMS, Jim Hooley told the publication the cost of an ambulance transporting people within the city is between 1,200 dollars to 1,900 dollars. “We just worry about taking care of people. We don’t want to cause them more stress. We just want to reassure them that nothing bad is going to happen to them because of their inability to pay.” This story tells us what a story state the people in the world are living in, where the pain of the debts from medical bills exceed the searing pain of a physical injury.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 04, 2018 03:47 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).