The tragic death of a woman at the Powell Street BART station on Monday afternoon gets a couple of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board. New details have been available regarding how the victim was dragged by the transport.
The San Francisco woman, identified by the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office as Amy Adams, 41, was dragged by the train that resulted in her death.
“It was pretty traumatic,” Mike Sim, who was on the platform when the victim’s body was dragged, said.
“It was kind of like dut, dut, dut, dut, dut,” said Sim, as he remembered what he heard.
According to BART, the woman was on the platform and was tagging along with her dog that was tied to her waist. She entered the train going Dublin/Pleasanton but when the doors were closing, she stepped out of the train, leaving the dog still tied to her inside the vehicle. The train left while the dog was inside, causing her to be dragged into the track. The dog, on the other hand, was safe, BART said.
“Everybody was in shock,” Sim added. He was the one who informed the BART attendant about the accident.
“You need to stop the Dublin train that just left Powell Street cause there’s somebody stuck on the door and then she goes OK, OK, you know, we’ll contact them,” he said.
The investigation that will be conducted with the NTSB will last for about a week. The probe will include the train and platform, the door system, as well as the operational procedures.
“And they’ll be gathering any types of sources of recorded data, so this could be video surveillance there could be recorded data at the train control center,” NTSB spokesman, Peter Knudson, said. Witnesses’ accounts will also be gathered.
According to BART, the victim seemed to see someone she knew when she got off the train.
“He said, ‘My girlfriend, my girlfriend,'” said Sim, as reported by ABC7.
The initial report from the NTSB is set to be finished within 30 days.
