From TriMet spokeswoman Becki Witt:
The event with the man, Aaron Bailey, and his young child (3 years old) happened Monday, November 16, at 8:13 a.m. at SE Main St station, on the northbound platform.
As the boy was getting off the train, he had pushed the accessible ramp button on the door, causing the door to open, then close again to deploy the ramp. The door should have reopened. It did not reopen and the boy and father were separated, the boy on the platform and the father inside the train.
The door and ramp function is still under investigation, but the ramp deployment process may have been overridden, causing the ramp deployment to be interrupted.
A woman on the platform is standing by the boy. She pressed the button for the door but the door didn’t open. The dad was inside, pushing the door open button as well. Other doors on the train opened and closed as normal, finally all closing and the train left the station. The child was on the platform, the woman (stranger) staying with him. She remained with the child until dad returned about seven minutes later on a southbound train from Gateway.
Mr. Bailey reports that he pushed the intercom button inside the train to contact the operator, with no response. It appears there was a malfunction with the audio component of the intercom. That issue has been addressed.
While this kind of situation is rare, there are clear protocols for when a family is separated from each other on our system. The operator is to call our control center to report what happened. A supervisor is dispatched to the child’s location and stays with the child until he/she can be reunited. The control center also informs the next train or bus coming to the child’s location to hold there until a supervisor or the guardian arrives. In this situation, once Mr. Bailey talked with the operator, rail control was called and a supervisor came to the SE Main St station. Mr. Bailey and his son had already left.
We’ve been in contact to Mr. Bailey to apologize for this unfortunate situation and gave annual passes to he and his wife for their inconvenience.
