Happy Halloween: F Train Riders Almost Get Impaled by a Construction Drill
Despite the fact that, in recent weeks, a lot of strange shit has gone down on the subways (we even saw a guy shaving on the F train last week—shaving!) when we read the news that a crowded F train almost got impaled by a construction drill yesterday, we actually considered alternative commuting options for the first time in a long time. Because, you know, we’d kind of rather not wind up en brochette on our way to work. Call us crazy!
The New York Post reports that a “giant drill bit nearly skewered an F train packed with passengers when an MTA contractor missed its mark while digging a well… The train, which was loaded with around 800 passengers, had just pulled out of the 21st Street-Queensbridge station in Long Island City around 11:45 a.m. Thursday when the drill came spiraling through the top of the tunnel and narrowly missed penetrating the top of one of the train cars.”
Luckily, the train’s operator heard the rumbling of the drill and pulled the emergency brake, and then “discovered the drill extending from the roof of the tunnel to the floor, which struck down just inches from the side of the train.” The power of the drill still managed to shatter many of the subway’s windows, and “gouged its steel frame.” Oops!
No one was hurt in the incident, and passengers weren’t made aware of what caused the subway’s emergency stop (one passenger, Stephanie Cruz, told the Post, she had “just assumed it was normal MTA crap”), but we know now, and, damn, if that isn’t some scary news! The company responsible for the drilling—Griffin Dewatering New England Inc.—had no comment on the incident.
But we do! But it’s less of a comment and more of a strangled scream. So we won’t attempt to write it out here, and will instead take comfort in the fact that everybody is safe, and the silver lining of this whole debacle is that the New York Daily News came up with one hell of a cover. Bravo.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen