In news that is almost as horrifying as the prospect of watching a rat king mate with another rat king, a 48-year old woman was subjected to numerous third-degree burns after she fell off of a subway platform in the Bronx and onto the fabled electrically charged third rail on Tuesday morning.
The incident occurred at the Gun Hill Road subway station at 10:40 a.m. when Martha Pamplin, a resident of New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, tripped while walking down the platform, causing her to land on the tracks.
“I was standing on the platform and heard a thud,” one witness, a man named Malik Saldana, told The New York Daily News.
Pamplin’s left arm made contact with the third rail, and was “critically burned,” as Gothamist described it.
“I took out my phone and called the police,” said commuter Jacqueline Loud, who also observed the fracas. “Then I saw smoke coming from the body and her left arm was burning.”
Two onlookers and a police officer at the scene immediately jumped onto the tracks to rescue Pamplin, who was then escorted to Montefiore Medical Center as she went into cardiac arrest. Another person—one of the good Samaritans that aided the victim, was also brought to Montefiore due to a hand burn she incurred while carrying the victim to safety.
As of now, the Metropolitan Transit Authority has not commented on the incident.
Image via Flickr/All-Nite Images.