Second train baby

[Miss Chicken]

A 15-month-old boy suffered only minor cuts and bruises when a train struck his pram after it rolled on to the tracks at a station in Australia today.
CCTV footage shows the pram rolling over the edge of the platform as a train pulls in at the station in Tooronga, a suburb of Melbourne.
It pushed the pram a short distance down the tracks before coming to a halt in front of horrified witnesses.
"It's absolutely amazing that this child isn't more injured than he is, given the circumstances of the accident," paramedic Kate Jessop told reporters.
"It would appear, amazingly, that it's nothing more than a couple of grazes and a big fright ... I was assuming the worst as well and had those awful pictures in my head of a child underneath the train."
The boy was in stable condition at the Royal Children's hospital. He suffered some minor facial bruising and grazes to his head, but otherwise appeared fine, Jessop said.
The baby and his three-year-old brother were being looked after by their grandmother at the time.

Link

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31UpMyr2hR0[/yt]

It was only last October, also in Melbourne, that a six-month-old baby survived after his pram rolled on to tracks when his mother let go of it for an instant. In that incident the baby only suffered a bruise to his head.

 

[Rii]

A few months back I came across an incredible story from India of a woman who'd inadvertently given birth whilst on the toilet of a moving train at night. The newborn went down the chute and fell to the tracks below. The mother immediately emerged from the bathroom and proceeded to leap from the train. Onlookers, believing she was attempting to commit suicide, pulled the emergency brake line. When the train eventually came to a stop and folks were able to backtrack along the line, they found the mother sitting by the tracks cradling her newborn child, unharmed.

No footage of that one. Fortunately, I think.

EDIT: Here's the story.

 

[Mary Ann]

Prams and pushchairs have brakes for a reason. These parents should not be reproducing if they can't be bothered to take basic precautions to keep their children safe.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I find that a little hard to believe, shouldn't the baby have still been attached to the mother by the umbilical cord. When the cord is not clamped or cut severance occurs after the cord has stopped pulsing which is between 5-20 minutes after birth.


I have been thinking about these babies in the prams. Wouldn't the mother (or in the second case the grandmother) had to have pushed the pram along the platform parallel to the tracks. If she had why turn the pram to face the tracks when she stopped? And why didn't they put the brake on? I think it should be a thing that a person does automatically without much thought.

 

[Rii]

I find that a little hard to believe, shouldn't the baby have still been attached to the mother by the umbilical cord. When the cords is not clamped or cut u severance occurs after the cord has stopped pulsing which is between 5-20 minutes after birth.

That occurred to me too. But then it occurred to me that the umbilical cord may not exactly be designed to withstand tensile stress. And then it occurred to me that I'd much rather just take an inspiring story on face value than investigate the structual limitations of the umbilical cord and associated... apparatus.