Man dies after getting caught exiting subway

SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Yonhap) — A 36-year-old man died after getting stuck between a train and a screen door separating the subway platform from the tracks of Subway Line 5 at Gimpo Airport Station in Seoul on Wednesday.

The man, identified by his surname Kim, was getting off the subway at 7:18 a.m. when the automatic platform screen door closed while he was trying to exit, police said. The subway train driver started the train without noticing him trapped there, and he was thrown to the platform through the screen door emergency exit.

Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corp., the operator of the subway line, said in a press conference that the driver opened the train’s doors after being informed by one of its passengers over the intercom that a passenger was trapped between the train and the screen door. The driver then started his train moving after the doors closed about 27 seconds later.

The screen door systems at subway stations are designed so that the screen doors and the train’s doors open at the same time. Then the train’s doors close first, and, two to three seconds later, the screen doors close.

But the subway operator said that the driver can open or close the train doors separately without triggering the screen doors too.

It was not immediately known why the driver did not bother to come out of the train after hearing about a passenger caught between the train’s door and the screen doors. An official of the subway operator said, “We have to determine why he failed to check the situation outside of the train.”

The company also said a warning light is supposed to blink at the driver’s seat if an object measuring 7.5 millimeters or longer is caught in a train door, adding that there was no warning after the door closed 27 seconds later.

Should an object measuring 7.7 millimeters or wider be caught, the train’s doors and screen doors automatically sense it and open. However, Wednesday’s accident took place in the space between the train doors and platform edge screen doors.

The width between the platform edge doors and the train doors usually ranges from 25 to 30 centimeters, and the width at the scene of the accident was around 28 centimeters.

Asked if the screen doors were malfunctioning at the time of the accident, the official said it is looking into all the possibilities that could lead to it.

Na-yeol, acting chief of Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corp., offered the victim’s bereaved families and citizens an apology over the accident. The Seoul metropolitan government and the company will give utmost support to a funeral for the deceased, Na said, adding, “We will come up with measures to prevent this type of accident from recurring and cooperate with police to determine its cause.”

Police said they are questioning witnesses and looking at CCTV footage to determine exactly what happened.

This photo, taken on Oct. 19, 2016, shows the scene at the subway platform of Gimpo Airport Station in Seoul where a 36-year-old man died after being stuck between a train and a screen door separating the subway platform.

In May, a junior employee was killed by a subway train while fixing platform edge doors on a station platform in Seoul. The screen doors have been set up at all subway stations in Seoul to prevent people from committing suicide. The doors, however, sometimes cause casualties by malfunctioning or trapping people.