Melbourne, May 27: In yet another incident, a 15-month-old baby on Wednesday escaped certain death after his pram rolled onto the tracks at a train station here into the path of an incoming train, when his grandmother looked away.
The boy suffered only cuts and bruises and has been taken to hospital for a check-up after being dragged up to ten metres face down along the tracks, according to media report today.
“It’s absolutely amazing that this child isn’t more injured than what he is, given the circumstances of the accident,” paramedic Kate Jessop told reporters.
“It would appear, amazingly, that it’s nothing more than a couple of grazes and a big fright. … I was assuming the worst as well and had those awful pictures in my head of a child underneath the train.”
The baby and his three-year-old brother were being cared for by their grandmother. She told officials she saw the stroller on the platform, looked away for a moment, and turned back to see it on the track, Jessop said.
Jessop said the boy, who was being cared for by his grandmother, was in a double pram with his three-year-old brother.
She said the three-year-old got out of the pram and the grandmother turned away for a moment and was shocked to see the pram on the train tracks just seconds later.
The boy’s grandmother was too distressed to speak.
She was taken by police to the Royal Children’s Hospital with the three-year-old to meet up with their mother.
Jessop said they are amazed the child was not more seriously hurt.
Chris Whitefield, a spokesman for Melbourne’s rail operator, Metro Trains, said the train was travelling slowly as it pulled into the station but it was a close call.
“We know the driver pulled up but it was extremely close,” he said adding “Minor injuries to the baby involved and a shocking incident for all who witnessed it.”
Last year in October, a similar incident had happened where a six-month-old boy Saurish Verma was rolled off in his pram falling off the platform and being pushed 30 metres along the tracks by a train, as his mother Shweta Verma watched in horror.
—-PTI