A man died at a New York City subway station after a plastic shopping bag he was using got caught in a train door, dragging him along as it started moving.
Yaw Boahene, 57, was exiting a train at the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn at about 5:50 p.m. Monday, using a cane and carrying his bag when the doors closed, trapping the bag inside the car.
Mr. Boahene held onto the bag as the train accelerated, banging on the doors to try and get the railway car to stop, and was dragged along until he slammed into a wall at the end of the station, police sources told the New York Post.
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Gabriel Broadus, who was heading home from school and witnessed the incident, told WABC-TV that “it was super traumatic, hearing it and also seeing the train continue to move because I don’t think the conductor noticed at all.”
Mr. Boahene fell onto the tracks after slamming into the wall, but was not struck by the train since it had already left the station, sources told the New York Post. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The police are also looking into whether Mr. Boahene’s foot got stuck in between the platform and the train due to how mangled his foot and leg were after the incident, sources told WNBC-TV.
Sources with knowledge of how the subway trains work told New York’s Daily News that the bag could have been too thin to register as an obstruction to the train door’s sensors, which normally cause the train to stop when triggered.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the New York City subway, has removed the conductor and motorman of the train involved in the incident while an investigation continues, according to WCBS-TV.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on X that one of its teams would be in the city Wednesday to investigate the disaster.
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