Holy shit lady! There’s a train coming! Quick—fall around all weird and then lie down between the tracks or something!

Grant Brissey covered everything from hard news and technology, to music, film, and visual arts during his time working for The Stranger. Grant's work has also appeared at Geekwire, and in Billboard,...

26 replies on “Waiting for the Subway While Intoxicated”

  4. Bullshit. Probably one of those portfolio builders from advert film company.

    (And this has nothing whatsoever to do with Charles Darwin’s theories, which don’t get near enough respect any more.)

  6. She touches the Third Rail (aka, whole bunch of voltage) before laying still for a while. Getting stunned by electricity probably saved her life.

  7. She has bombs strapped to her body that were set to explode had the train over run her. A tea-bagging-birther put up to it by those crazy lady Congresswomen from Minnesota and North Carolina.

  11. Yeah, saw that earlier this morning, a colleague sent it. That’s pretty extraordinary. Wow, was she lucky. Ironically, her taking public transportation was a wise choice. She would have been in no condition to drive. And, I am certain not a few people have fallen onto the tracks not drunk, not stoned, not committing suicide or in other words completely sober during fixed-rail public transit’s history. One time in Chicago, I came across a chap who was lying down and moaning on a public transit platform at my stop. He was drunk and had been beaten. All his front teeth were missing. I stayed with him until the police came round. So, her condition wasn’t too surprising.

  12. What a fucking dumbass. I dunno where that is. The Skytrain here has motion sensors on the track so if anyone jumps onto the rails it just stops the trains for a station or two down the line, and then alerts security. Occasionally someone jumps right in front of a train and there is a large mess, but anyone pulling this stunt would just gum up the works and get fined for being a doofus.

  14. Savage will LOVE this part- she lost her balance while trying to put out a cigarette. Turns out ciggies can kill ya in more ways than one.

  17. @16- That really doesn’t look like a suicide attempt, that looks like a very drunk person having trouble with gravity in a very bad location.

  22. Hit by a Train by Les Savy Fav

    Waiting for the subway.
    Looking around.
    Waiting for the subway.
    I looked up and then looked down.

    I saw something twinkling down on the tracks.
    (repeat 12 times with greater intensity)

  23. @16: It’s definitively a “Too drunk”,

    and also: even if it was a suicide attempt, I will not be sympathetic. I think people that publicly commit suicide like that (throwing themselves in front of a train, leaping to their doom in a public venue) are complete and utter assholes – can’t off themselves without having to traumatize at least five people while at it.

    I will admit this may not be a popular opinion, but Christ.

  24. She definitely made a bad choice and got very lucky. But it’s the people that were nearby who get my sympathy. Specifically this guy (from the comments on the bostonist.com post):

    Her last words would have been to me. I was waiting at the end of the platform to make sure I would get on the subway after the Celts game. She walked past me and asked “Are you going to be mad if I smoke a cigarette? I will go all the way to end.”

    I said I didn’t care and she walked all the way to the end. But she stood at the edge by the tunnel on the yellow line. I remember I heard the first ding of the “orange line is approaching.” I finished a text message telling my buddy I ran into the big guy who was dancing on the jumbotron all night. Then I hear people screeming as I watched her take her last steps before diving into the pit. It was not suicide. She clearly lost her balance and was too drunk to recover. However, nobody was close enough to grab her as she was trying not to get smoke on anyone. She was all by herself. No friends with her before or after the incident.

    I’ve been pissed at myself all weekend for not doing anything else. I feel like if the lights of the subway weren’t on us, I could have pulled her out of there, but there was no time. The train was there withing 10-15 seconds of her falling in. She laid down so that the subway would go under her, but I’ve always been highly skeptical that someone could actualy fit under there. I just don’t think the train is built that way. Maybe she was just too drunk to get up.

    It all went by so fast. I figured I would need to have someone hold onto me if I tried to pull her out with my arm. The tracks are just so deep at that station, I would have no leverage. In the end, there was just no time. I 100% thought I was going to have someone die right in front of me. It was the scarriest moment. People were running away and screaming. I saw women crying.

    I can’t believe the girl is alive. I couldn’t get any sleep Friday night over this. This is a situation I can’t even handle in a movie, let alone right in front of me. Great job by the conductor, as she had almost no time to react.

    I just found all the video and I am right in the middle of all the clips. There was only 10 seconds to react. The people waving their arms on the yellow line really helped.

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