Blind man dies after falling under an U-Bahn

New station announcements in the S-Bahn

Unfortunately this is only for the S-Bahn and thus did not help the blind passenger who fell under the U-Bahn at Ostbahnhof yesterday (or day before, is in the AZ anyway).

@ Katrina
Not to threadjack, but do you happen to have a link to any info about the blind passenger? I saw a blind man day before yesterday, at the Sendlinger Tor station, who was having an immensely difficult time - I am praying this is not the same gentleman.

Minga has the story (in German):

Mann stirbt bei Unfall mit U-Bahn

And a few more details here: München am Donnerstag.

It happened on Monday, so it can't be the same guy you saw the day before yesterday.

sad...

Thanks for the links, Malcolm. Glad it's not the same guy, but horribly sad story all the same.

Just out of curiosity, how many people will go up & lead a blind man when you see one? Some reports back home said some women experienced being molested by blind man when they helped/held them and that put off women helping

A lot of blind people don't want to be "helped".
Someone I know whose husband is blind wrote some stuff i can go and dig up of you are interested.

Don't agree.

I worked two weeks with a blind man. He was an amazing individual. Since then I have absolutely no hang-up whatsoever in taking any blind person by the elbow (you just gently guide them) to wherever they need to go. Tactility is not an issue with blind people at all.

But obviously introduce yourself quietly first and offer!

I've got a blind cousin. He's fantastically fanatical about his independence.

Unfortunately blind passengers falling onto the track is not an altogether uncommon occurrence.

U-Bahn deaths

Hmm... I remember coming out of Kilian's not long after it opened with the Irish gf I was with then. We came down to the U-Bahn platform and somebody had obviously been hit not long before. He/she must have been on the platform and lent out in front of the train, because there was this crescent of sanguine on the platform with bits of skull in it. Nobody had made any attempt to clean up the mess. Which reminds me, I'm hungry.

I don't see it as "helping" someone or taking someone's independence.

Fellow human can't see. So you do what you can to compensate. Now patronising him and talking down? That would be offensive.

AIDING THE BLIND:
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TOUCH THE PERSON FIRST.

1) Stand to the side of the person you intend to help
2a) ASK if that person wants any assistance
OR
2b) Say to the person that the nearest door is to the left or right, and about how many meters away it is
3) Ask if he or she wants to be led and only then offer your arm or shoulder, or take the arm if given.

You have to consider the blind person's situation. You'd never touch some sighted stranger when offering assistance. The blind person has no way of making even the slightest judgement about you other than whether you've washed recently or stepped in dogshit.

woof.

er isn't that what I said above?

No need to shout mate.

You'd figure with all the U-bahn accidents, that MVV/MGV would get smart and install barriers to prevent people from falling onto the tracks, like the ones they have in Paris and other cities...

If you look down, you'll notice that at each station (least all I've checked), that there are 10 grooved lines along the entire length of the platform. This is for the blind who use canes as assistance.

I don't usually offer anyone blind assistance, unless they really look like they are having a tough time finding the door. Which I can imagine is how a lot of blind people get run over - mistaking the gap between trains for the door. I certainly do watch them like a border collie near a flock of sheep to make sure they don't stumble too close to the line though.

I didn't see it until after I'd posted. You wrote to ask first more as an afterthought. One of the biggest complaint I've ever heard from blind friends was the utter hatred and fear of well-intentioned strangers grabbing them.

woof.

One of my best friends in S.A. sat in a wheelchair after a rugby accident, paralysed from the neck downwards. Could only move his hands slightly, had his arms suspended in metal casings. I was the only one allowed to push him. He wouldn't let me help him get into his car (had a modified car), would not let me help him pick up stuff he dropped.. people with a handicap are really very, very weary from over-helpful people.

@BadDoggie
I was told last night by Jeeves that you and I have the same nose(what a weird thing to notice as well!). My condolences.

No dawg. That's how you read it.

I've always offered handicapped people help. They're entitled to say no. It's better than ignoring them, they fall over and then you look like the apathetic dickhead who tried to ignore them rather than ehlp.

I met a load of blind and handicapped skiers in New Zealand a couple of years ago.

They didn't want help on the slopes but were only too glad for help to negotiate all the snowboards, skis and junk left around near the food, toilets and facilities at the bottom.

Theres a difference between being helpful and patronising - trouble is not everybody reailises when one is the other.

This is one of the main reasons I want to learn the language - I feel like a twit if someone needs help or in minor emergencies when I can't understand what's going on.
Had to help some totally blind women on a Ubahn platform a few months ago. She was trying navigate and go down the up escalator. Lots of people were just standing around watching her. Luckily she spoke a little english so I could tell her it was the wrong one and steer her the right way, but it annoyed me that she so clearly needed help and no German bothered to give any.

Blind skiers? How does that work? Do they swap their guide dog for a huskey?

Oh my God! I just read the article, this guy fell down twice onto the tracks! I find it hard to believe that nobody could have heared him cry out for help. This is just terrible!

hmm.. he was drunk. Even people who aren't blind but are just drunk have fallen onto tracks, so being blind+drunk on the bahnsteig seems liek an accident waiting to happen.

Yup. Courting disaster.

The old ones are the best. (Original post was in 2005).

Someone on here wrote that blind people can mistake the gaps in between trains for the doors. I don´t know about you lot, but that makes bloody depressing reading for me.

I was at Berlin Friedrichstrasse station last year when some guy smashed into me. He was huge, we´re talking 150 Kg, and I had a job to stay on my feet. I was all ready for action, but he apologised. Then I saw he was blind.
He wandered off, his white stick flapping, before crashing into Dunkin Donuts. It was obvious to the scores of people watching that day that this guy was in trouble. And yet, not one of them stopped to even ask if he needed help. What were they all thinking that afternoon? Someone else will help? He´ll make his own way alright in the end? He might not want help anyway? Gosh, he might even molest me.
My German was crap at the time, but I couldn´t just stand there.
"Wo gehen Sie?" Where are you going? See, I even got the German accusative thing wrong.
"Gleis 4. " Platform 4.
I didn´t know the German for "OK, let´s go", but I gripped his elbow and he followed.
The next part was comical but very sad. Platform 4 was an escalator ride away. Unaccustomed as I was to leading the blind, as soon as my new mate stepped on, he went flying backwards. It was like stepping on a banana skin, and I had to grab him. He was OK but far from pleased.
On platform 4, I told him what the sign said, and the next train in just under five minutes was his. He muttered his half-hearted thanks, and I was off.

Not much of a story, but I was amazed by some of the (old) responses I saw above. Fair play, don´t go grabbing people, but what have you got to lose by asking some blind guy if he needs help? They´ll soon tell you where to go if not, but I reckon 999 times out of a 1000, they´ll be polite whatever.

Anyway, I´m far from being a do gooder, only wish I had the time, but somewhere on this forum is a post about helping blind folk in NRW. A website was given out (www.dbsv.org). Any blind "help" groups in and around Munich? I might not be qualified, even if I now know the German accusative, but there´s no harm in asking...

The website you mention, http://www.dbsv.org/, is for a nationwide organization. The Bavarian branch is http://www.bbsb.org/ and is headquartered in Munich.