Odd News

Aussie baby survives after stroller hit by train

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-27 09:00

CCTV footage shows a baby's pram about to fall onto the tracks?as a train pulls into a?station in?Melbourne.?[abc.net.au]

MELBOURNE, Australia?- A 15-month-old boy escaped with just a few cuts and bruises on Wednesday after a train struck his stroller, which rolled onto the tracks when his grandmother looked away for just a moment.

The dramatic escape came just seven months after another baby in the southern city of Melbourne survived a train striking his stroller, which also had rolled onto the tracks.

Security camera footage of the latest incident shows the stroller rolling over the edge of the platform just as the train pulls into the station. The stroller is pushed a short distance down the tracks before the train comes to a halt in front of horrified people.

"It's absolutely amazing that this child isn't more injured than what 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 baby and his 3-year-old brother were being cared for by their grandmother. She told officials she saw the stroller on the platform, looked away for a moment, and turned back to see it on the track, Jessop said.

Officials have not released the names of the children or grandmother.

"I'm all right, I'm just concerned about the child of course, and it's my main concern," the grandmother told reporters. "I just want to make sure he's all right."

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

In October, a 6-month-old baby survived after his stroller rolled onto the tracks when his mother let go for an instant. Security footage showed the stroller plunging off a station platform as the commuter train pulled in, and his mother's desperate lunge to grab it. The baby only suffered a bump on the head.