(no subject)

[sabremeister]

The train from Birmingham was running late, and I hadn't been able to find my lunch. We were approaching Leeds, and I had carried my bags past the snack counter into the vestibule at the end of the coach. There were three or four others with the same idea. Coming towards the snack counter from the next coach is a small boy and his mother. I don't know how old he was, but he was old enough to walk and wear proper clothes, but not yet old enough to be trusted in trousers without a nappy. The kid reaches up to the button to open the door. One second, everything is fine. The next, his arm is disappearing into the gap between the door and the housing over the walkway between the coaches, and he's screaming.

The mother is doing nothing. Neither is anyone else. It seems to take me ages to cover the 4½ feet to the door and grab the inner edge of the frame on both sides and pull. The hydraulics have been told to open the doors by both the button, and the proximity sensors. I know I'm not going to be able to make much difference for long, the only hope is to shut down the door somehow. I turn towards the vestibule I was standing in. "Get the guard!" I shout. No reaction. "Get the guard!" I bellow. I have no time to see if there's a reaction, I need to turn my attention back to the doors. In the vestibule, some woman is screaming, "Get the guard, he's hurt, the guard, oh just come!" obliterating all attempts at meaningful and concise communication with sheer noise (and this is with The Cooper Temple Clause playing at through my earphones). I pull. I know that if I don't, the kid could lose his hand. The mother is by now trying to pull his arm out from the gap, but to little effect. I pull some more. The hydraulics take a break for a split second. It's enough. I haul the door towards me enough for the mother to pull the boy's arm clear. I let go of the door and let the prox sensors tell it to open, as on one side of me the mother comforts the screaming child, and on the other, the man from behind the snack counter lumbers into view. I brace the doors with my foot and back to stop them closing again. After a few minutes of bawling, the mother manages to get the child out of the walkway between the coaches towards the snack counter, where he's been promised a big diet coke. I notice the child's dummy still on the floor between the coaches. I pick it up and hand it to the mother. She thanked me for that, but not for stopping the doors from opening fully. She did know enough to admit it was her own fault, though, to the snack counter guy.

I lost my sunglasses somewhere in all that, too.

 

Con report to follow.

Comments

[ailbhe]

Crikey.

As we were leaving Birmingham a mother was furious because a train door had closed on one of her children as she was getting her family and luggage off.

[rgemini.livejournal.com]

Good grief - what a way to follow up on the Con! Well done - not bad for someone running on no sleep and post-adrenaline flop! It's strange how many people don't seem to react sensibly when anything like that happens. That child was bloody lucky you were there. And so was his mother.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

Well done for keeping your head and doing something. Stupid woman...