Boy distracted by phone miraculously survives being hit by train
A Perth teenager has cheated death after being hit by a train while using his mobile phone.
Aung Su admits he was distracted by his phone when he tried to cross the tracks – and the 17-year-old only survived because of how he fell.
Knocked out, Aung Su woke up lying in the middle of tracks, struggling to talk before finally asking: “What happened?”
In a call to triple zero, a witness said: “He looks like he’s hit by the train and the train has stopped in the middle of the station … He’s lying on the ground now with blood coming out.”
“At first when they said I’d been hit by a train, I thought I was dead,” Aung said.
Aung’s sister had picked him up from their home in Kenwick and drove him to their local station about 4pm on Thursday afternoon.
Aung needed to be on the opposite platform to catch a train to Carousel Shopping Centre, where he was planning to get a haircut ahead of his Year 12 Ball.
He was talking on his phone and didn’t notice the boom gates had gone down for the four-car train he stepped in front of.
The train was moving at approximately 40km/hr and weighed 180 tonnes, but because of the way that Aung fell, he was dragged but not pulled under the wheels.
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He has broken his collar bone and has cuts to the face, but miraculously he didn’t need surgery.
“Anyone who gets hit by a train and lives to tell the tale is extremely lucky,” Dr Sudhakar Rao of Royal Perth Hospital said.
Aung was discharged late on Friday afternoon, only 24 hours after he arrived.
“I’m just happy that I’m alive and I can see my mum, my dad and my family,” the teenager said.
He has a strong warning about using mobile phones out in public.
“Make sure you don’t use it when you’re walking, and when there are tracks and car roads,” he said.
Remarkably, Aung was able to attend his high school ball on Friday night.
