Montreal City Weblog

Kate 05:55 on 2021-03-04 Permalink Reply  

• Meezly 12:42 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  I was trying to remember a young woman was hit by a train in Montreal a few years ago – she was wearing headphones. I tried to google it, but came across many similar train accidents all over the world where the unfortunate victim was wearing headphones.

• Bert 13:36 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  I seem to remember something in Point-St-Chales. Though in that case I seem to remember that she was cutting through a rail yard – https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/sarah-stott-looking-to-the-future-after-devastating-train-accident

  This comment can be extended to yesterday’s report on a deadly car accident…. In both cases there were barriers and lights (assuming working equipment). Anyone who crosses tracks (or a crosswalk) and doesn’t also check visually are just not using their head.

• dwgs 13:43 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  The young woman from the accident in the Point unfortunately committed suicide a little while after, the whole story was tragic.

• Kate 13:57 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  The woman from the 2014 incident in the Point was not only hit by a train and severely injured, she also wasn’t seen for some hours because it happened after midnight in the winter, so she also suffered from frostbite. She faced a grim future after that. It really was tragic, dwgs.

  But I don’t recall that she was wearing headphones. It may seem obvious to sense that a train is coming, but depending on the acoustics of the particular spot, it may not be. Another incident that comes back to me is the three young guys who were killed by a train at 3 a.m. in 2010 while painting graffiti in the Turcot yards. Somehow, although they were in a group and must have been talking and not wearing phones, and vehicle traffic above them would’ve been fairly sparse at that hour, they didn’t hear the train.

• Blork 14:55 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  There was a case of someone getting hit while wearing headphones a few years ago, but I don’t remember the details. If I recall correctly, the case WRT the woman in the Point involved her walking alongside a parked train and when she came to the end of it she crossed in front of it and then onto the parallel tracks, where the moving train was. One of those situations where there was probably a low rumbling sound but it wasn’t clear where it was coming from (more like a background hum). A really sad story that one.

• Kate 15:07 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  There was also a woman who clambered over a train halted in the Old Port, and got hurt when it started to move unexpectedly.

  Blork, I can’t find a reference to Sarah Stott, the woman in the Point, wearing phones. She was a barmaid and was walking home very late, and I don’t think most women would choose not to hear what’s going on around them while walking alone at that hour.

• Blork 18:57 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  I don’t think she was wearing headphones. I was saying there was another case around the same time of someone (a teenage boy I think) getting hit by a train while wearing headphones.

• Blork 19:00 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  This one:
  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/deux-montagnes-train-service-cancelled-due-to-medical-emergency-1.4812023

  It was 2018, so a few years after Sarah Stott. BTW if you Google “teenager struck by train while wearing headphones” you get more than 4 million hits.

• Bert 19:16 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  What is with the headphone fixation? Anyone who doesn’t visually verify before crossing train tracks (both ways) is just ignorant.

• Meezly 22:31 on 2021-03-04 Permalink

  Sorry I went on a tangent. Back when I was commuting via mass transit, I’d wear headphones all the time. I try to look alive but sometimes your mind wanders, y’know? It’s awful to hear about these accidents, and this one with a dog.. so sometimes I wonder if it could happen to me…?

• Bert 08:49 on 2021-03-05 Permalink

  I too did the headphones during commutes. But always with safety in mind. Walking around I would usually have only one earpiece in, so I could still hear some of the outside world. Some people plug in their earphones and unplug their brains.

  Any accident is awful, particularly for innocent bystanders, like the dog, the train driver and anyone who may have possibly witnessed the accident.

• Alex 12:36 on 2021-03-06 Permalink

  We live next to the train track that cuts the Plateau off from Rosemont, there are lot of people that walk and ski between the rails at all hours of the day, I am surprised fatalities don’t happen more often

• Ant6n 15:01 on 2021-03-06 Permalink

  I’d say the accident is particularly awful for those who get killed. Being inattentive doesn’t mean you’re somehow “guilty” and deserve death.