Baby survives after train hits pram at Melbourne railway station

[armaghniac]

Toddler aged 15 months sustains only minor cuts and bruises after pram rolls off platform at Tooronga station

Video footage of the incident at Tooronga station
http://www.youtube.com/v/g3HEcNzAepM&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl

A 15-month-old boy suffered only minor cuts and bruises when a train struck his pram after it rolled on to the tracks at a station in Australia today.

CCTV footage shows the pram rolling over the edge of the platform as a train pulls in at the station in Tooronga, a suburb of Melbourne.

It pushed the pram a short distance down the tracks before coming to a halt in front of horrified witnesses.

"It's absolutely amazing that this child isn't more injured than he is, given the circumstances of the accident," paramedic Kate Jessop told reporters.

"It would appear, amazingly, that it's nothing more than a couple of grazes and a big fright ... I was assuming the worst as well and had those awful pictures in my head of a child underneath the train."

The boy was in stable condition at the Royal Children's hospital. He suffered some minor facial bruising and grazes to his head, but otherwise appeared fine, Jessop said.

The baby and his three-year-old brother were being looked after by their grandmother at the time.

"I've spoken to the child's grandma now," Jessop said. "All she recalls is seeing the pram on the platform and then next time she turned around and she saw it on the tracks. She has had an incredible fright."

In an almost identical incident last October a six-month-old baby survived after his pram rolled on to tracks when his mother let go of it for an instant. Security footage shows the mother's desperate lunge to grab the pram as it rolled over the platform. The baby suffered only a bump on the head.

The two cases have raised questions over platforms at Melbourne railway stations. The train operator Metro has admitted that most platforms in Melbourne stations slope towards the tracks at an angle that could make an unsecured pram roll forwards.

A Metro spokesman said that older station platforms were built sloping slightly towards the railway tracks to help with drainage.

However, under rules introduced in 2004 newly constructed railway platforms must now slope away from the railway tracks.

"This hasn't happened at the Tooronga platform," Chris Whitefield told the Melbourne Age. "That would have been its original slope ... it's a timely reminder for people to ensure that the brakes are properly applied on prams and to keep your hand on the pram at all times."