Patient hurt in train accident

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 6

Patient hurt in train accident

PA Wellington The superintendent of Porifua Hospital (Dr J. H. Hall) will receive a full report on yesterday’s train accident in which a hospital patient was said to have stepped in front of a commuter, train at Porirua Station. The hospital has not released the name of the injured woman, believed to be in her early 30s. She was admitted to Wellington Hospital with serious head and arm injuries.

She was injured in front of the 8.27 a.m. PlimmertonWellington commuter unit as it pulled into Porirua Station.

The hospital’s assistant principal nurse (Mr N. Griffin) said yesterday that Dr Hall would receive a report on the accident as soon as he returned to work on Tues- , day.

Mr Griffin said the hospital was concerned about yesterday’s accident and a similar : one in which a patient, aged 19, fell under a train at Porirua Station on April 30, while waiting to catch a unit into her Wellington day job. An onlooker yesterday at the station said the woman was standing at the cold and deserted northern end of the platform when the train was announced. “I saw her fall over to the edge of the platform and when the train approached she stepped out in front of it. “The train hit her on the shoulder and tossed her away from the tracks,” he said. The General Manager of Railways (Mr T. M. Hayward) last evening described the accident as tragic. “It is also very distressing for our staff,” he said.