A man was fatally struck by a train after jumping onto the subway tracks to try to get his phone on Christmas Day.
The 46-year-old man was on the northbound platform at the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue subway station in New York City’s Queens borough when he dropped his phone onto the tracks shortly after 11.30pm.
He jumped down onto the tracks to get his phone but was not able to climb back up as a northbound F train moved into the station, police said.
The man was struck. His body was discovered positioned upright on a bench inside the train as it got to the Rockaway Parkway station, which is the final stop on the route, the New York Post reported.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. There were no signs of trauma on his body to suggest criminal activity.
Also on Sunday an hour before the victim was hit by the F train, another man was found dead on an L train in Brooklyn.
The holiday cheer did not deter criminals in the city’s problem-plagued subway system.
Three straphangers were robbed on Christmas morning, including two tourists from Sweden, according to the New York Post.
The Swedish 30-year-old woman and 31-year-old man were on the platform of the southbound R train at the 25th Street station in Brooklyn around 9.30am when a man ‘simulated a firearm’ and demanded that they hand over their belongings, police said. The robber escaped with the Swedish tourists’ wallets, phones, cash and a purse.
Earlier at around 1.30am, two 16-year-old boys stole a man’s iPhone as he waited for a southbound train at West 72nd Street and Broadway in the Upper East Side, cops said. One of the teens punched the man during the struggle. The suspects then made a purchase on the victim’s Amazon account, and were later arrested and charged with robbery.
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