Falling into a gap between a train and a loading platform can lead to serious physical injuries and even death. A Newsday story reports how gap-related personal injury lawsuits have been filed against the Long Island Rail Road and its parent company for nearly 35 years, and little has been done to fix this common occurrence of train accidents.  

Specifically, Newsday examined 500 of thousands of personal injury lawsuits filed since 1970 against the railroad and its parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Examining courts in Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, the report found that slip and fall injuries and gap-related injuries were the most prevalent claims made with 65 and 63 lawsuits respectively. Falling into a gap has led to physical injuries like torn ligaments, fractured bones, dismemberment and paralysis in some of these cases, according to the story.

The LIRR has settled most of these train accidents before going to court. In some instances, victims have signed nondisclosure agreements. According to the story, the railroad paid nearly $700,000 to 15 of the gap victims. The company is now facing 16 pending gap-related lawsuits, including a $50-million suit by a woman who broke her neck when falling into a gap in October 2004. The railroad was also sued for $5 million in October by the family of a Minnesota teen who died after falling into a gap.

This report raises an important question: couldn’t all of this settlement money been used to initially solve the problem after the first such incident and prevent all of these gap-related train accidents from occurring? Why hasn’t the LIRR done more to fix the problem, especially with so many people commuting via train daily in the state of New York?

If you’ve been injured in a gap-related incident, speak to a New York personal injury attorney for immediate assistance.