SINGAPORE - A woman who was travelling on the Circle Line had her leg trapped in the gap in between the platform at Buona Vista Station and an MRT train during the Monday morning (April 8) peak period.
In a Facebook post on Monday morning, user Brandon Wong said that the train was "full to the brim and passengers were rushing to get out of the train".
A woman fell after she was pushed and her right leg was caught in the gap from the knee down.
The Facebook user added that he tried to calm the woman down and assisted SMRT staff in lifting her leg out of the gap.
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SMRT vice-president of corporate communications Margaret Teo confirmed the incident in a statement on Monday and said that the emergency stop feature at the platform was activated immediately, before station staff and other commuters helped to free the woman's leg.
The incident happened at about 8.45am on the train travelling towards HarbourFront.
The woman was later taken to National University Hospital.
"Our care team is reaching out to her and we hope she recovers quickly," Ms Teo said.
She added that the incident led to a 10-minute delay in train service.
Commuters were told of the service delay through in-train and station announcements.
In his Facebook post, Mr Wong urged train commuters to help others in need and sympathise with them, rather than simply "stand around taking photographs and videos".
He also suggested that SMRT should work on its staff's emergency response time and train them more often on how to carry out first aid.
"The lady's leg got caught at 8.45am, the first SMRT staff on the scene arrived 45 seconds later, the second one more than a minute later," he wrote.
"I understand that the morning crowd at Buona Vista can get pretty unmanageable, but there has to be more urgency. Furthermore, any talk of an ambulance wasn't even initiated until more than 10 minutes later. In my view, that's far too slow."
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When Mr Wong noticed that the woman was helpless, he held her hand to reassure her that the train had been manually stopped and that they would help her get her leg out of the gap.
He said that a medical student eventually stepped forward to help at about 9am.
His Facebook post left users divided, with some questioning his critic over SMRT staff in the comments.
User Shamsul said: "45 seconds is already quite fast, unless the MRT staff was just standing 20m away."
Others applauded him for his thoughtfulness.
"Thank you very much for (your) quick thinking, young man. It could be anyone's mother or sister or daughter," wrote another user.
The user noted that while other commuters stared or were busying themselves with other things, he had come forward to help "without hesitation... Kudos".
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.