A young mother has died after falling down stairs at a Manhattan subway station while holding her one-year-old daughter.
Malaysia Goodson, from Stamford in Connecticut, fell down the stairs at a midtown Manhattan station at around 8pm on Monday, police said.
The 22-year-old was unconscious when police arrived. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her child was unharmed in the incident.
Police said it is unknown whether the child was in a pram during the fall, as initially reported by authorities.
“I wish I could have helped her,” Ms Goodson’s 23-year-old brother, Shawn Goodson, told the New York Times .
He said his sister was a protective, caring mother.
It was not immediately clear whether Ms Goodson had a medical issue that caused her death or whether she died from the fall. The city’s medical examiner will determine the cause of death.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which also is investigating, called Ms Goodson's death "a heartbreaking tragedy".
Only about a quarter of New York City’s 472 subway stations have lifts and the lifts that do exist are often out of service.
Shams Tarek, an MTA spokesman, said the Seventh Avenue B-D-E station where Ms Goodson fell does have escalators. Parents are generally advised not to use escalators with a pram, however.
A lawsuit filed against the US transportation authority described New York's subway system as one of the least accessible in the country and accused the agency of violating the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. The case, which was joined by the justice department in 2018, is still active, according to Disability Rights Advocates, which is representing the plaintiffs. The subway's leader, Andy Byford, has promised to add enough elevators to the system by 2025 so that no rider would be more than two stops from an accessible station. Mr Byford has made accessibility one of his major priorities since joining the transit agency a year ago. He hired Alex Elegudin as the subway's first "senior adviser for systemwide accessibility." Mr Elegudin has used a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury stemming from a deer-related car accident in 2003. New Yorkers with young children said the scenario was all too familiar. On a popular Facebook group for mothers, one woman posted about the death, saying she hoped it would serve as a "wake up call" for a system that keeps raising fares but fails to help disabled riders and families. – PA and New York Times