Watch CBS News

Woman May Have Been Sleep Walking In Fall Onto Davis Square MBTA Tracks

SOMERVILLE (CBS) – A woman who may have been sleepwalking survived a frightening fall into the track pit at the Davis Square station on the Red Line Monday morning.

Surveillance video released by the MBTA shows the woman walking across an empty platform around 8:40 a.m., through the yellow warning area and then dropping straight down onto the tracks.

She spent about a minute there before a crowd of people came onto the platform and pulled her out.

"She was never in danger of being struck by a train. No train was anywhere near Davis Station at the time. She is being treated for an arm injury," MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo told WBZ-TV in an email.

Pesaturo said the woman, who is 31-years-old, never came in contact with the electrified third rail. Her name has not been released.

According to the incident report, the woman told the ambulance crew that she had fallen asleep on a bench and possibly slept-walked into the pit. She was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital where she was treated for an injury to her lower left arm.

Jim Kang of Cambridge was there shortly after the woman fell. "I came down the stairs and I heard some screaming," he said. "There was like a lady laying on the platform. She'd just been pulled up and then there were two men down there who were trying to get up."

Those men were also pulled back onto the platform. "A T official came by and asked what was going on and she said she broke her arm," he said.
He thought about what he would've done had he been there a few moments before. "Hopefully I would've helped out," Kang said.

The MBTA does not encourage people to jump on the tracks. "Customers are urged to notify an MBTA employee if someone is on the tracks," Pesaturo said in the email. "An employee can immediately notify the subway control center to stop all trains from entering the station."

WBZ-TV's Bobby Sisk and Christina Hager contributed to this report.

MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM CBS BOSTON

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.