On Wednesday, July 28, 2021, about 2:28 p.m. local time, a man was struck and killed by a train at the Spring Garden Station platform in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) Market-Frankford Line (MFL) passenger train number 78 entered the station for a normal station stop, the man fell from the platform into the path of the eastbound train and was struck and killed. At the time of the accident, the weather was mostly cloudy skies.
We determined that the probable cause of the fatality was the failure of the man on the station platform to maintain balance at the platform’s edge, which caused him to fall from the platform into the path of the train, where he was struck mid-fall by the train and killed. Contributing to the cause of the accident was his impairment from a combination of psychoactive drugs.
