After a year marked by bad news – fatal crashes; official reports indicating that safety needs to be improved – it is refreshing to encounter a story about Tri-Met that makes you feel good.
According to The Oregonian, a Tri-Met train driver’s quick thinking saved the life of a woman who had fallen onto the tracks last week. What could have turned into a disastrous Portland transportation accident was averted, the paper reports, mainly because train driver Arthur Beardsley “knew the Willow Creek stop in Hillsboro can be ‘a scary area.’” As a result, he was already approaching with caution when a woman fainted in front of his oncoming train.
Trains, as the article notes, can take a long time to stop. Large freight trains can easily travel over a mile after the brakes are applied before they begin to lose momentum. Even light rail cars, like the trains commuters use here in the Portland area, normally take about 600 feet to stop, according to The Oregonian. In this case it was only Beardsley’s unusually slow approach to Willow Creek that averted an otherwise certain tragedy.
I have written on a number of precious occasions that Portland personal injury lawyers are here to help everyone in our community hold those who are reckless and negligent accountable for their actions. Oregon wrongful deaths, medical malpractice, drunk and distracted driving and industrial accidents need not happen. The courts exist to help citizens get the justice they deserve – but even better outcomes come from people and companies exercising due caution in their day-to-day activities, in the hope that all of us do not need to resort to the justice system in the first place.
The Oregonian: Tri-Met operator, knowing he was approaching a ‘scary area,’ hit the brakes just in time to save woman