Woman suffers severe leg injury when struck by SEPTA Broad Street Line train

A woman suffered a severe leg injury Friday night when she was struck by a SEPTA train on the Broad Street Line in North Philadelphia.

About 11:45 p.m., police said, the woman appeared to have jumped from the platform in front of a moving subway train at the Cecil B. Moore station. She was stuck beneath the train but was freed by SEPTA and Fire Department personnel, police said.

The woman, who police said was unidentified and appeared to be in her 30s, was transported by medics to Hahnemann University Hospital, where she was in stable condition.

No further information was immediately available about her Saturday.

Two days before the SEPTA accident, an 11-year-old girl got caught underneath a CSX freight train in Southwest Philadelphia. The girl was playing on the tracks with friends, lost her footing and was dragged by the train. She lost one leg and the other was partially severed.

According to SEPTA statistics, from 2011 to the present, 84 people have died after being struck by a SEPTA train or trolley. Of those, 53 were suicides and 31 were fatal accidents.

In each of those past years, except for 2015, 13 people died after being struck by a SEPTA train or trolley. In 2015, 12 people died.

So far this year, seven people have died. Five of the deaths were confirmed suicides; the others were accidents. The fatalities this year occurred after a person was struck on the Regional Rail (four deaths) or Broad Street Line (three).

SEPTA spokeswoman Kristin Mestre-Velez said Saturday that the transit agency is looking into installing safety gates to prevent people from falling onto the tracks and to deter suicide attempts from the Broad Street Line platform at the City Hall station.

The idea, part of reconstruction planning for the City Hall station, is still under preliminary consideration, and no cost estimates are available, Mestre-Velez said. At this time, she added, the transit agency has not identified additional locations where safety gates might be installed.

This year, SEPTA's Make the Safe Choice Customer Safety Day centered on the theme Respect the Train. As part of its safety-awareness day, transit agency employees last month spoke to customers about the importance of safety, not going in front of a moving train, and being aware of one's children and surroundings.