Cape Town - A commuter who was shoved off an overloaded, moving train, together with another passenger who clung to him for dear life, has been successful in his effort to sue the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) for his injuries.
John Davids of Athlone had been a daily train commuter in 2017, when he was contracted to do refrigeration work at the Protea Spar in Brackenfell.
While he was on his way home at around 5pm on October 24, 2017, he entered a full train carriage and said he was pushed towards the door where he became squashed “like a sardine”.
This happened while the train was moving, and the carriage doors never shut.
As the train travelled between Brackenfell and Stikland, another passenger, Ebrahim Koopman, who testified that he was a short person, only 1.5 metres in height, said he had no place to hold on, so he clung to Davids.
As the train continued toward Stikland, Davids found himself being pushed further, to the edge of the carriage.
The next thing he recalled was seeing white and waking up in Tygerberg Hospital.
“The plaintiff’s (Davids) evidence was that he was standing in the middle of the carriage and was pushed towards the open carriage door.
“He did not have any control whatsoever in his onward movement.
“Mr Koopman, being a short person, had nowhere to hold and his only source of stability was the plaintiff on whom he clung on for dear life
“As the passengers bumped him, he fell out, grabbing on (Davids).
“They then both fell out of the train carriage together and ended up between the train tracks.
“They lay there waiting for help. A person came to help moments afterwards and helped Mr Koopman to get up.
“(Davids) lay where he had fallen, moaning. He waited for help to arrive. An ambulance later arrived and took both him and the plaintiff to Tygerberg Hospital.”
Prasa argued that Davids was aware of the risk associated with the train leaving the station with open carriage doors, and consented to that risk by boarding the train.
Western Cape High Court Judge Matthew Francis, however, found that Prasa, in allowing the train to depart from the Brackenfell station with open doors, was guilty of negligence.
“It must be emphasised that it remained the defendant’s (Prasa’s) legal duty, and its operational obligation, to ensure that the train doors were closed when the train left the station and when it was in motion. Accordingly, I find that the defendant has failed to discharge the onus in respect of its defence of contributory negligence.”
Judge Francis ordered Prasa to pay Davids’s damages for injuries and his cost of counsel.
Prasa said its legal department was studying the judgment.