Subway Hits Woman Looking for Cell Phone
Woman, 19, Dies Looking for Phone She Had Dropped on New York City Subway Tracks
The Associated Press
NEW YORK Feb. 11 — A 19-year-old woman was crushed by a train after she jumped onto a subway track to retrieve a cell phone she had dropped, police said.
Lina Villegas was pronounced dead Tuesday at a Queens subway stop. She had dropped her phone onto the tracks and climbed down from the train platform to find it when she was hit, police said.
Villegas saw the train coming but was unable to pull herself back up to the platform in time, said Officer Jennara Everleth, a police spokeswoman.
The incident highlighted the danger of walking on subway tracks.
"While the instinct may be very strong to climb down when you drop something on the track, obviously, don't do it," transit agency spokeswoman Deirdre Parker said.
Recently, on an episode of "Mythbusters", they tested to see if the urban myth was true that using cellphones at the gas pump could ignite a fire. They tried strapping a cellphone to a container of gas in an enclosed area, then dialing the phone to see if it would explode. It didn't work.
Their next theory was that static electricity was the cause and they had a bit more success.
They checked statistics and discoved that almost 80% of the gas station/cell phone fires involved women, which then lead to the theory that the fires were caused by Chatty Cathies getting out of their car, starting the pump, then getting back into the car for their cellphone.
To test the theory, they used an old seat from a junk yard and rubbed some clothing on it in a box containing a can of gasoline. It took some work to get the right mix of air and gas, but in the end they did get a spark.
So, they figured that cell phone use per se isn't the cause of the fire. Its the way people use it - when they get in their cars to get the phone they generate static electricity. Then, when they go to grab the pump handle the static causes a spark near the opening of the gas tank. The person's first reaction is to pull the handle out of the fuel filler neck, which causes gas to spill out and spread the fire on the ground and on the victim.
