MONTREAL - Montreal police are investigating what appears to be the accidental death of a 20-year-old woman who fell between two métro cars last Friday while viewing her smartphone.
Video surveillance footage showed Audrey-Anne Dumont as one of the last commuters to attempt to board the train around 8:15 a.m. just as it was pulling out of Monk station toward Honoré-Beaugrand.
She was crushed to death under the wheels of the train. The accident resulted in the rush-hour interruption of service of 30 métro stations.
Quebec’s coroner’s office is also investigating the circumstances surrounding the death. Although authorities cannot definitively rule out suicide, all signs point to the conclusion that Dumont’s death was a tragic accident.
Dumont’s death has also raised safety questions about the Société de transport de Montréal’s aging fleet of métro cars.
Isabelle Tremblay, a STM spokesperson, refused to comment on the incident.
“We need to wait for the results of the investigation,” Tremblay said. “We can’t draw any cause-and-effect conclusions.”
Tremblay did confirm, however, that the STM’s new métro trains — to be phased in next year at a cost of more than $900 million — will not have spaces between wagons, making them safer for passengers.
Dumont’s funeral will be held Saturday afternoon in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
Reports of injuries to distracted smartphone users have more than quadrupled in the United States in the last eight years. Last July, a Philadelphia man was captured by a video camera meandering along the edge of a train platform at night, distracted as he spoke on a smartphone. The video showed him stumbling, losing his balance and landing headfirst on the tracks.
The man was able to climb back onto the platform before a train arrived.
If that subway train had a gun, this wouldn't have happened.
