Man died after falling on SEPTA tracks, getting electrocuted at City Hall

A man died at SEPTA’s City Hall station after he accidentally fell onto the tracks early Monday morning and was electrocuted, the transportation authority said.

The man, whom officials have not yet identified, was on the Broad Street Line platform alone around 4:40 a.m. when surveillance video shows he fell onto the tracks, said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.

Busch said it’s not clear why the man was in the station at that time, but that investigators believe he may have been experiencing homelessness. Busch said it was not immediately clear how the man fell, but when he did, Busch said, he made contact with the energized third rail and was electrocuted.

Investigators believe the fall was an accident.

“There wasn’t anybody else with him. We don’t believe foul play was involved,” Busch said.

The accident occurred before trains started running for the day. Even though the subway does not run overnight, parts of the City Hall station remain open for overnight trolleys, Busch said, and the man may have accessed the platform through one of those entrances.

Shuttles were initially running between NRG Station and Girard Station on the Broad Street Line due to the emergency response, and when service resumed, southbound trains skipped City Hall, according to social media posts from SEPTA.

Service returned to normal by 6 a.m., Busch said, with some residual delays.

The fall marked the third significant incident to occur on SEPTA within the last two days. A 20-year-old was shot on a Broad Street Line train heading north from Hunting Park Station on Saturday night, and, just a few hours later, a man attacked another rider with a hatchet near the Eighth and Market Streets station early Sunday morning.

» READ MORE: A hatchet attack and a shooting at SEPTA stations this weekend continued a spate of high-profile violence