Tuesday, May 12, 2015

12-YEAR OLD BOY KILLED BY SAN FRANCISCO MUNI TRAIN AS HE WAS TRYING TO CATCH HIS SCHOOL BUS





MAY 12, 2015

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

An 11-year-old boy was hit and killed by a San Francisco Municipal Transit light rail vehicle in the Outer Mission District Tuesday.

The accident was reported just before 9 a.m. at the intersection of Lake View Ave and San Jose Ave., according to Mindy Talmadge of the San Francisco Fire Department, who confirmed that the child had died.

Jay Hader, who works at a nearby corner store, witnessed the boy who was wearing a backpack run around an SUV.

“The M [Ocean View] just came and it was already moving and it hit him and he got [dragged] underneath, so it’s just real sad,” he said.

The boy whose name has not been released, lives in the neighborhood and his mother was nearby when the accident happened.

Muni reports service disruptions in the area:

ATTN: #Moceanview turning back outbound/inbound at Broad & Plymouth due to collision. Updates to follow.
— SFMTA (@sfmta_muni) May 12, 2015

“Oh she was hysterical,” Hader said. “She was trying to move the train. She was trying to pull the kid from under the train. She just lost it. And we’re trying to get somebody to get here. They got here about 10 minutes after the whole thing happened.

The coroner is at the scene where the body remains under the train. San Jose remains closed for several blocks. Motorists are advised to avoid the area.

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A 12-year-old boy was fatally struck Tuesday morning by a Muni train in San Francisco - killed by the train that he was trying to hop on to get a ride to school, a witness said.

Neighbor Jay Hayter told NBC Bay Area that the boy was running across the street on the way to school about 8:30 a.m. and was trying to avoid an oncoming SUV in the Ingelside neighborhood of Lakeview and San Jose Avenue.

Because the SUV was in the boy's path, Hayter said: "He just got run over by the train, pulled underneath. He didn't see the train."

The boy's mother or aunt were "hysterical," Hayter said, and tried to pull him out from underneath the train. People nearby told them to stop, there was nothing they could do.

"I have no words," Hayter said. "It's a child."

The boy's age was not immediately clear. Firefighters first said the boy was 12, and police said the boy was 11. Witnesses said he attended Aptos Middle School.

Emergency personnel worked around the scene, blocked off with yellow tape. Near the train, women were crying and a man sat on the stoop dialing his cell phone and breaking out into tears.

Hayter said he thinks the area needs a stop sign or a stop light because "people get hit all the time."
"It's tragic," he said.