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Man Killed by Subway Train While Trying to Retrieve MP3 Player


By

John Del Signore

Published Dec 15, 2009

Modified Dec 15, 2009


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Peter Ehrlich/NYCsubway.org

 


By

John Del Signore

Published Dec 15, 2009

Modified Dec 15, 2009


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An unidentified man was fatally struck by a southbound B train last night around 7:30 at the Central Park West and 110th St. station. Witnesses told police the man, an Hispanic male from Washington Heights in his mid-30s, was engaged in an agitated cell phone conversation when he dropped his portable music device onto the tracks. One bystander says, "I saw a guy sitting on the stairs talking on his cellphone, then I saw him leaning over the tracks watching for a train to come, when, all of a sudden, he was nowhere to be found."

"It was an accident," a police source tells the Daily News. "He went on the tracks for his MP3 player, picked it up, and stood up just in time for the train to hit him head on and drag him. He just wasn't quick enough." The man's body was so badly dismembered that it took hours for crews to clean up the station, according to the News. Earlier this month, a man was killed by a train at the Pennsylvania Avenue station in East New York and, five years ago, a 19-year-old woman was killed at the Grand Avenue station when trying to pick up her cellphone from the tracks.

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110th street

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John Del Signore

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Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations


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