VIDEO: Woman dragged by San Francisco Muni train after getting hand caught in door

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Saturday, April 20, 2019
VIDEO: Woman dragged by Muni train after getting hand caught in door
An elderly woman can be seen walking up to a Muni train, seconds later the doors close in on her while part of her hand is stuck.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The state is now investigating what lead to a woman's hand getting stuck in a Muni train door.

ABC7 obtained video by the San Francisco Examiner of the incident that injured the Muni rider.

RELATED: Witness describes seeing elderly woman dragged across platform by new Muni train

The unidentified victim survived the fall but her condition is still unknown to the public.

An elderly woman can be seen walking up to a Muni train and, seconds later, the doors close in on her while part of her hand is stuck.

A Muni employee speaks to her, but the train pulls away. The unidentified rider was dragged onto the train tracks.

"Possibly her finger because the door close with less than a half of inch of space between the door and the door jamb when she reached for the door," said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose.

Even after this, SFMTA says the sliding doors in their new trains are safe.

"There are sensitive edges within the doors that can detect when a hand or an object is in the door preventing it from closing. In this case it appears that the door had less than half an inch to close and in the last millisecond this person reached for the door and tried to open it," said Rose.

This is not the only problem with the new fleet of Muni trains. A pin holding two cars together snapped in mid-ride. SFMTA is making changes said Rose, "We decided not to couple the trains from one car into a two train until we get answers as to what's going on with the shear pin."

After this incident the California Public Utilities Commission says it's investigating and will inspect both the pin system and the sliding doors.

San Francisco District 6 supervisor Matt Haney wants Muni to provide a report to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. "There clearly needs to be some different sensors on the doors or some way for riders to be able to see it in a different way. My understanding is that some of the operators actually flagged that this was an issue and they were concerned about it," said Haney.

There are 60 new Muni trains and 40 of them are active on streets. According to SFMTA, The California Public Utilities Commission inspected the trains for 6 months prior to their approval.

This video was obtained by The San Francisco Examiner.