A cyclist in Kent is being treated in hospital this evening after he apparently rode across a live rail on a Southeastern railway line.
The incident happened at around 1140 this morning at Harrietsham near Maidstone in Kent, reports the BBC.
The man was initially treated by firefighters before paramedics arrived.
Train services were suspended while the incident was being dealt with.
UPDATE #MaidstoneEastLine: Services through the area are returning to normal. Here’s the damaged rail that engineers needed to repair: pic.twitter.com/9zdV1Ji4sg
— Southeastern (@Se_Railway) August 27, 2017
24 thoughts on “Kent cyclist hospitalised after riding across live rail”
Wonder what voltage carbon
Wonder what voltage carbon rims are good for
Must have thought it was the
Must have thought it was the current thing to do…
This is a very shocking story
This is a very shocking story
This could spark a safety
This could spark a safety debate.
Should have stuck to a
Should have stuck to a Wattbike, he’s gone through a total transformation, his power was a bit less than the current average bright spark.
Ohm my gosh! Guess he was
Ohm my gosh! Guess he was training to power.
I’ll get my coat.
Does anyone know if he was in
Does anyone know if he was in violation of Southeastern cycle policy? Seems to be dependent on where he started his ride:
Ow!
Ow!
I wonder what his peak
I wonder what his peak wattage on the ride was?
[Insert gag about train-ing
[Insert gag about train-ing for track racing here]
I enjoy a bit of off colour,
I enjoy a bit of off colour, Darwin award humour at the expense of stupidity, but I’d ask you to look again at the picture of the bike wreckage, especially the handlebars and give some thought to the types of injury this poor sod is waking up to this morning.
Edit
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/disruption-after-motorbike-fire-131172/
Apparently not even stupidity, but ignorance.
Mungecrundle wrote:
Or the lack of front wheel which seems to have vaporised
Mungecrundle wrote:
Key point perhaps being that he’s an American tourist. Scarily easy to get into trouble in a foreign country if you mistakenly assume things work the same way they do at home. Also, getting badly injured while a long way from home has got to be a really rough experience.
Not good for the cyclist, he
Not good for the cyclist, he might be lucky still to have fingers left. I’m sure he will be scarred for life, mentally if not physically if lady luck really was on his side.
If he was cycling where he shouldn’t have been so I also hope others learn from him and his example.
So there’s a highly
So there’s a highly electrified rail just ‘out there’? Are there fences? Are there warning signs? Did the cyclist climb a fence? Do we know why they were crossing there?
(edit: I’ve just read the Kent online link mungecrundle put there; might have been useful to put all that information in the road.cc article. Those of us outside London and the south east forget that so many railways *are* electrified there)
What an idiot, no we don’t
What an idiot, no we don’t need more signs just need to stop people being stupid and if we can’t we need to minimise the impact they have on the rest of us.
I guess they took him away in
I guess they took him away in an amperelance?
Butty wrote:
That’s appalling
.
On a serious note, regardless of physical injuries the guy’s going to have nightmares for life. The flash and the noise must’ve been terrifying.
I grew up in the SE in the
I grew up in the SE in the early 80’s and in those days British Rail employees visited schools and treated us to a number of public information films about the dangers of the third rail. The films didn’t show anthying gruesome but the sense of doom they built up and the smoking remains of a toy or similar that they ended with were enough to keep me away from the third rail. That photo of the bike brought back memories
gmac101 wrote:
Yeah I remember the visit well in primary school.
embattle wrote:
Me too.
I also remember some youngsters from my school continuing to take a shortcut over the rail lines even after the visits. OK, the lines were not electrified on our route, but it was still bloody stupid then and bloody stupid now. It just shows you can have as many signs and education exercises, but stupidity still comes out on top sometimes.
I grew up in the SE in the
I grew up in the SE in the early 80’s and in those days British Rail employees visited schools and treated us to a number of public information films about the dangers of the third rail. The films didn’t show anthying gruesome but the sense of doom they built up and the smoking remains of a toy or similar that they ended with were enough to keep me away from the third rail. That photo of the bike brought back memories
he was only trying to
he was only trying to recharge his ebike
At least he doesn’t need to
At least he doesn’t need to walk far to get his bike spotwelded back together .. and he’s lucky he didn’t have an e-bike … there’d have been an explosion. No doubt the keystone cops were quickly on the scene … apparently there was a conductor on the rail … he should have been on the train.