Train kills woman trying to save man

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The crossing in Midori Ward, Yokohama, where Natsue Murata was killed by a train and died

October 3, 2013

The Yomiuri ShimbunYOKOHAMA—A 40-year-old woman was killed by a train while trying to rescue a man she saw lying inside a railroad crossing in Midori Ward, Yokohama, on Tuesday, according to the Kanagawa prefectural police.

The accident occurred at about 11:30 a.m. at the Kawawa crossing between Kamoi and Nakayama stations on JR Yokohama Line.

The 74-year-old man sustained serious, but not life-threatening injuries, including a collar bone fracture. He was lying between two rails, and the train is believed to have run above him, the police said.

Police are investigating the circumstances of the accident, including how and why the man was lying inside the crossing. According to the police, the crossing is about 10.8 meters wide, equipped with an alarm and crossing barriers.

Just before the accident, the woman, company employee Natsue Murata, from Midori Ward, was seated in the front passenger’s seat of a car driven by her 67-year-old father, Shigehiro. They were waiting for trains to pass through the crossing, but Natsue noticed the man, left the car and went inside the crossing, although the barrier had already gone down.

According to her father, Natsue spotted the man shortly before the accident and shouted, “I’ve got to help him!” Her father tried to stop her, saying, “It’s too late. You mustn’t go,” but she didn’t listen to him and ran out of the car. She tried to carry the man out of harm’s way, but was struck by the train.

The crossing is about 250 meters southeast of Nakayama Station.

‘Adorable daughter’

“Of the three sisters, she looked like me most. She was an adorable daughter. I have to console myself with the fact that the old man is alive,” Shigehiro said Tuesday in front of his house in Yokohama, choking for words at times.

Natsue lived with her parents and two sisters in the house about 300 meters away from the site of the accident. For the past three to four years, she had been helping her father run his real-estate company.

Recently, she also earned a qualification related to the business. When the accident occurred, Natsue and her father were on their way back to the company after looking at a property.

“She worked with vigor,” her father said. “When she got the qualification, I told her, ‘Well done, Natchan.’ I thought she had a great future ahead of her...”

Natsue grew up in a commercial district in the neighborhood. When she found someone drunk on the street, she would speak to the person and kindly help them find their way home.

“She was a kindhearted girl who couldn’t pretend not to notice when someone was in trouble,” her father said.

A real-estate company president who knows both Natsue and her father said: “Natsue was a slightly built, quiet person. She was a great person with a sense of justice deep inside her.”

Similar cases in the past

There have been other cases in which someone entered a crossing or rail tracks to save another person’s life and was run over by a train.

In November last year, a 60-year-old woman found a man crouching inside a crossing on JR Takasaki Line in Honjo, Saitama Prefecture. The woman entered the crossing to help out but was killed by a train. In January 2001, a man fell from a platform at JR Shin-Okubo Station in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo. A 26-year-old South Korean student and a 47-year-old photographer jumped down from the platform to rescue the man, but all three were hit by an incoming train and died.