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Subway Delays Caused by Ladies on Diets
By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 2, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jan 2, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because it gets your body going, and the MTA definitely wants you to have your breakfast. Some interesting news just in time for New Year's resolutions. amNew York finds out that women fainting from their crash diets are a leading cause of subway delays. Really. While things like the flu and hangovers describe some sick passengers that the MTA's Sick Customer Response Team tends to, the SCRT EMTs mostly see fainting thanks to dieting.
"You have women trying to get their bodies tight for the summer and they won¹t eat," said Asim Nelson, a Transit emergency medical technician based in Grand Central Station. "Not eating for three or four days, you are going to go down. If you don't eat for 12 hours you are going to get weak."
That makes total sense! Now, how does fainting cause the delay? When a-faintin' comes around, other passengers contact the conductor and then the train must wait for EMTs to respond. We wonder how long it'll be until the MTA has "Eat Your Breakfast" SubTalk posters in train cars?
"Sick passengers" were the number 3 cause of subway delays last year... we'll dig to find out the number 1 and number 2, but if anyone knows, tell us! And here are the stops where there are Sick Customer Response stations: Queens Plaza; Roosevelt Ave., Queens; 125th St.. (Nos. 4,5,6), Manhattan; Grand Central Station; 5th Ave. & 53rd St., Manhattan; 14th St.& Union Square, Manhattan; Fulton Street, Manhattan.
Photograph of the "Subway Lean" by ~ Raymond on Flickr
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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