19-year-old talking on mobile phone run over by train

A 19-year-old boy talking on a mobile phone was run over by a train on Tuesday evening.

Commuters shouted at him from the train and passers-by tried to draw his attention to the train, but he was so engrossed in his talk that he failed to see anything, a government railway police officer said.

He had the phone tightly clasped in his hand even when he was brought out of the tracks, he said.

"We have handed over the body to his father," senior inspector of Vashi police station Baldev Bhujbal said.

"He was run over by a Vashi-Thane local train at Nerul."

A Central Railway spokesperson termed the incident unfortunate.

"The motorman kept honking continuously the moment he saw him walking on the tracks," he said. "But he could not hear the loud horn. The motorman slammed the emergency brakes but it was too late. The train ran over him."

Mohammed Siddique Allaudhin Sheikh sustained head injuries and both his legs were separated from the body, the GRP officer said.

"He was taken to the MGM Hospital in Vashi, but he did not survive."

With more and more mobile phones flooding the market, there has been a stupendous rise in such deaths, he said.

"The theory says the brain isn't wired to do two activities simultaneously," the spokesperson said.

"A person will be able to register one train approaching, but he/she might not register another one coming on the adjacent track. We have upgraded the honking system and pattern to alert commuters. But those talking on mobile phones would not hear them at all. One should never talk on the phone while crossing the tracks or on the platform edge. It can be fatal."

Alarmed by the rise in such deaths, the railways have begun taking assistance of cognitive psychology to learn the mind of commuters who cross tracks.

"We have put up images and formulas that are known to deter commuters from crossing tracks," he said.

A similar incident happened at Koparkhairane earlier this year where a young girl working at a BPO died after being hit by a train. She was talking on her mobile phone and did not hear the train's horns.