A shocking discovery was made on Saturday afternoon in the Bronx borough when a subway operator stumbled upon a severed human leg on the tracks. The New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed that the gruesome find was made on the northbound No. 4 subway line, between 170th and 167th streets in the Mount Eden neighborhood.
The NYPD released a statement indicating that the leg had been removed from the scene and that an ongoing investigation was underway. The primary focus of the investigation is to determine the identity of the individual to whom the leg belongs and to ascertain how it ended up on the subway tracks.
The leg has since been handed over to the city’s medical examiner to aid in the investigation. As of now, the police have not been able to determine whether the leg belonged to a male or female.
The leg was discovered by an MTA worker who was conducting a routine sweep of the elevated line. The worker spotted the leg on the tracks and was able to stop the train before it could run over it. The police reported that the leg was not concealed in any way and was found in plain sight. There were no tracks in the snow leading to the leg, adding to the mystery of the situation.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) confirmed that subway service was briefly disrupted due to the incident. This unsettling discovery has sparked discussions about safety on public transit, particularly in light of recent incidents in other parts of the country.
Transit officials in San Francisco have recently issued warnings about the dangers of “surfing” on moving trains. This follows two tragic incidents in the past month where teenagers fell and died while attempting to “BART surf” on a moving train as part of a social media challenge.
A transit worker, speaking anonymously on Reddit, expressed the distressing nature of such incidents. He emphasized the emotional toll it takes on transit workers who have to deal with the aftermath of such reckless actions, including the guilt and trauma that can haunt train operators.