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Friday, June 27, 2014
Woman falls out of MAX - sues Trimet
A 77-year-old Portland woman who broke her hip and pelvis after the doors of a crowded MAX train closed on her last fall is suing TriMet for $251,000. Raissa Moore's complaint, filed Thursday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, blames the train operator and TriMet's failure "to maintain its doors" so that they don't close on boarding passengers. The Oregon 22, 2013, incident occurred at the Oregon Convention Center station. Moore and a friend had just left an event when an eastbound Blue Line train pulled up to the platform and its doors opened. The two women stopped short of boarding at the nearest entrance because it was too crowded, so they walked to another set of open doors, said Steven Kahn, Moore's Portland attorney. But before the women could board, all of the train's doors closed, a security video from the platform shows. Moore's friend can be seen pushing the exterior "open door" button. She was able to get on. However, a couple second slater, the doors began to close again, the video shows. With Moore still on the platform, now separated from her friend, it appears from the video footage that a passenger inside the train was able to get the doors to briefly reopen. As Moore attempted to squeeze onto the train, the doors closed on Moore, Kahn said. "As they close on her, she does a one-eighty and falls onto the platform," he said. After reviewing the TriMet incident report, Kahn said he thinks the operator, who isn't name din the lawsuit, is largely to blame. The operator, he said, told investigators that he closed the train's doors when he determined that there was no one left in his "line of sight." However, the video shows that Moore and her friend were attempting to board when the train's doors closed. "Isn't there somebody on the train looking at the platform to see two elderly women having a difficult time boarding the train?" Kahn said. "What I see is a driver impatient to continue on on his route rather than being concerned about the safety and well-being of his riders wanting to board the train." Full story HERE
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8 comments:
I've looked at that video over and over. It appears there is something from the inside that causes resistance or pushback- something or someone (maybe the crush load?) pushed her back to the door causing her to fall out of the STILL CLOSING DOOR, N O T the door itself. She was inside, then fell.
No case. (but TM will settle...)
I think the allegation is correct. The door should not have closed yet. But her falling out is a whole Nother issue I thought it appeared she was pushed out also
People, learn the definition of an accident. The doors had a close command from the operator. Door leafs move in unison. Sensitive edge activation due a door leaf closing on an obstruction causes the door to cycle open, pause, then reattempt to close by design. She got on the train but the doors sensitive edge activated due to yet another obstruction(probably the poor lady herself). She lost her balance just as the doors cycled open yet again and fell hard. The thinkers of Tri-Mess really screwed up as the trains can only be two cars long per downtown city blocs. Individual two car consist trains do not hold enough people, bikes, strollers or all the other crap people carry around resulting in over crowded two car trains running around with seconds/minutes between them in certain choke point areas among people, bicyclists and autos causing vast amounts of equipment wear, a small army of people to operate the trains and the ability to deal with equipment problems a serious dilemma that quickly brings the whole system to a halt. The front line workers (Transportation and MOW workers)deal with this CAOS every working day trying to do their jobs operating and maintaining under this environment with pressure from people behind desks critiquing what most of them could not do themselves. Think it's easy? Wish you really knew! Sure, blame the operator and make him/her take a piss test. The real blame is on the people who designed/approved of this inevitable accident prone system.
Excellent and poignant comment. I agree
Definitely not a door issue. She appears to have both feet and most of herself inside the train and the doors start to close as normal before she starts to fall. You can't fault a door for closing on people when (besides the sensitive edges) it can't tell when people are trying to board.
Also, since she's of the age, shouldn't Medicare be paying for the health care expenses (I know there's also the "pain and suffering)?
While only viewing video once, it appears the subject lady was wearing a "Red Back Pack" device which was pinched in the train door which may have caused her to loose her balance and fall backward.
We can't see if she was pushed by the crowd inside the train or not.
Whats crazy is there "ALWAYS" another train just around the corner and there are so many different ways to use the system transversing from point A to point B, that shear greed and impatients is the root cause to so many incidents and collisions with in the system.
I like how the bicyclest just has to board the packed train "First."
This sort of legal action only occurs in the good old us of a where filing lawsuits has become big business.
The door might have closed too soon but that obviously had nothing to do with the fall.
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