A homeless teenager was killed before dawn Saturday after she was run over and dragged several feet by a Philippine National Railways (PNR) train along the railroad tracks in Manila.
Police attributed the accident to 19-year-old scavenger KC Bautista and her live-in partner’s dangerous habit of sleeping on the train tracks.
Bautista was declared dead on arrival by attending doctors at the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center from loss of blood after her right leg was crushed and almost amputated.
Her 20-year-old common law husband and fellow scavenger Augusto Alonzo, who had been sleeping beside her on the tracks, was unscathed after he was able to wake up in time and get off the railroad tracks.
Police said the incident happened at around 5:12 a.m. on the train tracks along Rizal Avenue near the Blumentritt Light Rail Transit (LRT) station in Sta. Cruz.
They said that the couple frequently slept along the tracks near the corner of Rizal Avenue and Antipolo Street.
A PNR train from Bicol, which had just pulled out of the Blumentritt train station, bound for the Tutuban PNR station along Dagupan Street in Tondo passed through the tracks. Jeannette I. Andrade