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  1. mind the gap london tube

    It must have been a Friday night and I was travelling on a tube on the Piccadilly line to work for my night shift to central London. I don’t quite remember but may be at Hounslow Central or Hounslow West 4 young girls entered my compartment and sat on the seats near the door. They had worn mostly black clothes (more like rockers than like Goth), had tattoos all over them, had piercings and were very drunk. I guess they might have been from Russia or some East European country.
    I was sitting in the last compartment, not the one near the driver. There was another south Asian guy seated in front of me, who freaked out on seeing them and got up immediately and went on the other side of the doors in the same compartment :) There were quite some people that side. I said "another south Asian" because I am south Asian (Indian) too. One of these girls was slightly bleeding from the nose but they all were having a good time. The one who was bleeding, fell in the tube again in front of me. However her friends, who were drunk as well, managed to put her back on her seat.
    After a while they reached their destination and were getting off the tube. I was watching them and feared that they shouldn’t get their legs stuck in the gap between the train and the platform. I think I should have at least told them to be careful because exactly the same thing that I thought happened. The girl who was bleeding got her leg stuck between the train and the platform. I ran immediately to the girl and then thought I should first raise the emergency alarm to stop the train. For a moment I didn’t know what to do and tried to pull her out when a white lady shouted "don’t pull her, lift her up". Well, she was right as pulling her might have hurt her. The reason it was so scary was because the train could have started moving anytime as the girl's legs were not blocking the doors but were between the train and the platform. There were quite some people in the tube out of which some one pulled the alarm. I helped the girl get her leg out of the gap which was not very easy as her toe was getting stuck under the bottom of the train. Somehow someone got her leg out ultimately, though. I remember most of the people were just onlookers and remember only some south Asian guy coming to help.
    After sometime a Police came to the scene. The funny part was that the girls were still near the train while it could have started to move anytime and exactly when the doors closed and the train started to move, the same girl was going to fall on the train. The cop pushed her away and took her away from the moving train. Thoughts about that incident were still lingering in my mind for a few more hours. I wonder how can some people be so careless about their lives...

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