A passenger’s claim that negligence by the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) caused him to fall from a moving train shortly before it reached a station was dismissed by the Gauteng High Court yesterday. The incident originally occurred in July 2017.
Justice Zihor claimed that he fell from the train while it was approaching the platform at Kopanong station and as a result he broke three bones in his left leg. He also claimed that he had a valid ticket and was travelling from Mabopane to Pretoria.
He said that before the train reached Kopanong, some passengers from the back coaches came through the coach where he was and as a result of the pressure from these passengers, he was pushed from an open door and fell out of the train. He testified that he fell on top of a concrete slab alongside the railway tracks.
According to Zihor, the train had no place for passengers to hold on and he did not remember what happened after he fell and only woke up in hospital the following day. He said that Prasa was negligent because they had failed to maintain the train and ensure the safety of its passengers.
However, paramedics had said that Zihor was fully conscious and speaking when they found him and they added that the incident happened at night, not in the afternoon like he claimed.
Judge Nomonde Mngqibisa-Thusi found that due to the time the paramedics were called to the scene, Zihor could not have been on the train that he said he was on and furthermore he was on a non-passenger train (which did not stop at any of the stations it passed on its journey).
The judge said that Zihor was an unimpressive witness, especially when taking into account the inconsistencies in his evidence.
The judge accepted Prasa’s version that he illegally boarded a non-passenger train that evening and when he realized that it wouldn’t stop where he wanted to disembark, he simply jumped off.
Sources: IOL, MSN
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