Baby survives after being run over by train. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8311289.stm

I saw this in the newspaper yesterday morning. A great stream of tears quickly flowed.

Then I saw the video last evening in an internet cafe. I wanted to post it on OLO but I couldn't see the computer screen!

Finally got to do it this morning, but still with great difficulty seeing through the tears.

Just extraordinarily emotional stuff - how something like this could happen...just so easily and quickly. And then how the baby could survive with no more than a bump on the head.

What do others think?

Yes, it was an extraordinarily lucky escape and a graphic reminder that people need to be very careful on platforms at train stations.

Why all the emotion though, Ludwig? Wasn't it you who described children recently as "horrible little rugrats"?

Feeling a bit guilty, perhaps?

Good morning Ceej.

I can just imagine you as a child. You must have been the world's worst rugrat!

In fact it appears to be a trait that you have held onto for fifty odd years!

Have a great day (:>)

I think we should remodel all our train stations and make a little fence to stop this ever happening again.

If we could save just one child, it would be worth it.

Not every child is fortunate enough to have careful parents.
Society should protect the children of these careless parents.
It takes a village to raise a child.
Think of the children!

If we could save just one child, it would be worth it.

WHAT IDIOT..DESIGNS THE PLATFORM TO SLOPE..INTO THE TRAINTRACKS

even those pimpled strips..[for the blind]should have prevented its movement...did they have the blind ripple strip...i forgot to note

the station...was it maned...many arnt

every accident...happen's
because monetarilly..someone stopped thinking

"WHAT IDIOT..DESIGNS THE PLATFORM TO SLOPE..INTO THE TRAINTRACKS"

Yes OUG. It makes you wonder. I would have thought that the designers could see the folly in that.

Um, water also flows down hill.

Ludwig

Why the slope?

Mostly to provide drainage as Houllie has already pointed out, the slope also aids wheel chairs, prams, although there is still a need for the train driver to provide a metal plank for disabled people to embark/disembark.

Although my heart leapt into my throat after seeing the footage of the pram on TV, I didn't feel the need for tears - the baby miraculously survived. Yet, I can still cry at the thought of all the children and their parents who drowned on the SIEV X.

Such is the difference between us.

All
Ludwig, Er yes I do believe it. That child will never win a lottery....I recon it's used up all its luck in one action.

The mum isn't totally blameless (unless you believe in the nanny railways :-)(just for col et al) those things do have lock brakes.

H, if one put a low fence or a block the momentum of the pusher and high centre of gravity in these things would simply tip the child out of the push chair on to the tracks.

The slope should be 2-3 degrees towards the centre of the platform. not too steep to make wheel chair access ridiculous.

Although this slope would make cleaning more difficult, probably the the reason it was designed that way....before push chairs and no one has re thought it.(Proof that capitalism and bat Thatcher didn't do such a great job :-( )

Given the number of this type of accidents and cost ($ always come first, my contribution is to point out that push chairs are inherently unstable weight distribution centre of gravity etc. They need redesigning badly.

One could suggest a default brake (dead man system...needing to be held to move.) and somewhere to hang shopping etc. You probably haven't thought about it but the number of children injured involving push chairs is staggering...over tipping etc.

Or in keeping with Ludwig's population concern and H's idiotically simplistic view of me ban Mums.... ahhhh can I start with my wife (and the children? well, make them leave home) and my mum? :-) They still nag me? :-(

Examinator: << One could suggest a default brake (dead man system...needing to be held to move.) >>

Excellent suggestion. But that would take all the fun out of blaming the parents, the railways, the government, private enterprise, architects, engineers, children...

"The slope should be 2-3 degrees towards the centre of the platform."

Yes of course it should Xammy. Crikey, you really do have to wonder what is in the minds of architects / designers that couldn't see the danger for wheelchairs, prams and other wheeled vehicles have access to the platform along the rail line, with absolutely no protection between them and passing trains.

Such a simple solution. Well, before the building stage. Somewhat harder to fix after construction.

"One could suggest a default brake (dead man system...needing to be held to move.)"

I was thinking about this earlier today (while hard at my main holiday passtime of beach-bumming in Byron Bay). I'm not an expert on perambulators, but surely a 'dead man' brake has got to be mandatory...which would lock the vehicle's wheels when it is unattended and only be released when a lever is held in on the handle bar. In fact I can hardly imagine such a vehicle that could so easily roll if left unattended not having one.

As much as I don't want to apportion any blame to the poor mother in this incident, I can't for the life of me imagine a parent allowing such a vehicle to not have a brake of this sort!

Surely any mother could see the potential danger immediately upon the purchase of this sort of pram, or any pram or similar sort of vehicle.

City pavements also slope towards the gutter for drainage. There is a risk that errant prams could wander in front of buses, large trucks and horror of horrors, a four wheel drive. Should all pavements, floors and other surfaces be immediately reviewed to ensure they all are dead level or preferably, slope away from any source of danger? Did anyone mention the danger of ramps and stairs? What about runaway prams on escalators? Ban them all!! As Houellebecq says, if we could save one child it would be worth it.

Then again maybe there should be a training course for driving prams, with an obligatory 100 hours under a learner's permit before the driver can be tested (and failed at least once as an act of bureaucratic bastardry).

On the spot drug and alcohol testing for pram drivers? You betcha!

What about extending the role of the Department of Transport's inspectors to pram inspection? Or better, have prams registered and inspected annually - which would provide a new revenue stream to State governments (sounding good already to pollies that one).

The 'news' is exception reporting, or have we forgotten that? Thousands of children are safely transported daily in prams and only one idiot lets the kid's pram loose on a railway platform. Poetic justice would be for the same dill of a parent to qualify for a Darwin Award by taking a quick trip in a pram instead. Too late now I guess, the genes have already been passed on.

Lol Cornflower, I too think it was just that silly woman who was not bright enough to think to hold onto the pram when a train is hurtling along close by!

Many people with prams, wheelchairs, bikes etc negotiate train tracks and train travel every day without falling onto the tracks.
I don't see how the railway stations can be made safer without limiting these people's access to trains.

Maybe one or two carriages on each train could be used just for people using wheeled transport for themselves or children, where there are fences leading up to the train door, and an attendant to see them on safely? I guess it would all take too long though.

signs are easy...make a level pad for wheeled things only here

the slope is for water runnof...but it can funnel specific areas..not the whole platform

suggest the level area be at entrance...on the shorter side of the platform...contractor could do the lot in a month...each train a new station...transport cement on rail decant the eghsact measure..level off go to next ready boxed up...station ..mixing a next batch

Nothing protects the stupid and lazy from themselves. What is to stop an unattended pram being drawn by the wind eddies and vacuum caused by passing trains? Again, what is to stop a pram being moved into a threatening position by a gust of wind in the open?

The inattention and slackness of some parents generalises and their children are always at risk, who hasn't been aware of the parents at (say) playgrounds who expect others to mind their children for them?

As much as I am concerned about child neglect - for that is what it really is when a parent cannot be concerned enough to monitor what is happening to a pram - it would be fruitless and hugely expensive for government to attempt to remove all risks, which is impossible anyhow and often gives rise to other, possibly more serious risks.

I can't actually watch the video as I am at work but I have heard alot about this story. Does anyone know how it came about that the whole event was filmed? Seems also lucky, along with the luck of the baby. Crazy stuff!

I think the tragedy was filmed by the surveillance cameras in the train station. Saw the video a few days ago, unbelievable that the baby wasn't really injured. The mother seemed to have lost control of the baby buggy and that's why it fell on the rails. Let's all be happy that the baby survived