October 30, 2007
UPDATE: Powell BART Station Shuts Down
"Trains headed into San Francisco from the East Bay were being turned around at Montgomery Street station, and trains headed to the East Bay from the Peninsula were being turned around at 24th Street Station or being allowed, in some cases, to pass on through Powell Street without stopping," we read in the Chronicle. Yikes.
Why? Because a body has been found under one of the BART trains. How the body ended up there or its current condition is unknown at this time. But a medical examiner has been called onto the scene, so...sounds like a not-alive body to us. Sadly.
UPDATE: After an apparent suicide, the Powell Bart Station reopened a little before 8 a.m. tonight. Witnesses claim "they saw the male victim get down onto the tracks and sit between the rails as the train was coming to the station. All signs are leading to suicide," said BART spokesman Linton Johnson.
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I was just on a train heading to SF from the E. Bay. All the passengers were booted off at West Oakland station. As usual, 511 was of very little use. The operator kept saying there was a medical emergency (same thing train operator said) but could not give any estimate about time or an alternative method for getting to SF. When a train did finally pick us up I knew the "medical emergency" had to be a jumper or someone pushed onto the tracks because the train driver was very agitated and kept yelling at everyone to back away from the yellow safety stripe at the edge of the platform at every stop. Eesh.
Fuck! First Halloween and now this! How am I supposed to get home from when I work late?
Hitch-hike?
Swim?
Stay in (shudder) Oakland?
I was out with my friend at the westfield mall. I wanted to get home by 6:15, and i "planned" to get off at Glen Park. My friend and I walked in to the Powell BART station and there was a big line of people waiting to get out of the station, who had to get their ticket stamped. I didn't know what was going on, so I went inside the gates, where I put my ticket in. People were telling me "the station is closing, everyone is evacuating"; over the PA system, it said the BART was closing due to a "medical emergency". I had to walk to Montgomery BART station and go inside. There was a train to SFO/Millbrae, but it was packed. One guy inside the train was yelling at people to "Get off the yellow line" *In a totally abnoxious tone* . So everyone had to wait, and luckily, when the next train came, I got a seat. The next stop was Powell. Everyone in the car saw that there was a BART train, Caution Tapes, Policemen, and "witnesses". You could actually see some blood, and faintly see someone lying on a cart or something. It looked like he was parylized, which was strange. One man, who was sitting behind me stood up, and said, "NO WAY! HE JUMPED!", and everyone knew what happened. This was about 15 minutes after the incident, which was about 8:55 PM. Thanks for listening to my story on the BART suicide discussion.
I got to Montgomery to discover it was closed (I guess it was too crowded to be safe?) so I tried to kill time at Old Navy, got to Powell and discovered the entire station was closed. Walked back to Montgomery and rode back to Civic Center, then back to 16th St., then got on a Pittsburg/BP train, and then we had an earthquake!
I left a comment on the Contribute page right around 6pm tonight; my SO was on the Powell train when it stopped and messaged me that there'd been an "incident on the tracks". He then watched and messaged me again as cops swarmed around the front of his train with flashlights, shouting, "Hello?". A few minutes later he messaged me saying it they weren't letting anyone off, and shortly after that he messaged to say he was grabbing a cab... which then promptly got stuck in the traffic at the Powell St. car + bus accident. Getting home was an ordeal for him, and then EARTHQUAKE!
Oh yeah, and they kept calling it a medical emergency until finally at Civic Center an announcement came phrased something like, "An extremely urgent medical emergency involving one person and one train." And everyone was like, "Ooooh..."
I would not like to be part of the train-jumper cleanup crew.
>Hey, Joe. Did ya find the head?
>> No, but I found the other arm...
Hope they get paid well. What a stressful job. Ugh.
so people kill themselves in front of bart, jerk off on the last car while going under the bay, what else do they do on bart?
someone should start a bart chronicles.