BIG DEAL OUT OF MAX LEAVING KID BEHIND

As you may know, there was a situation on Monday where a man and his son were
separated from each other during a MAX trip, and we are making the video from
the platform and an overview of the situation available to all media. If you
haven't picked up a disk from us, you can get the video here:



Here's the situation: The event with the man, Aaron Bailey, and his young child
(3 years old) happened Monday, November 16, at 8:13 a.m. at SE Main St station,
on the northbound platform. As the boy was getting off the train, he had pushed
the accessible ramp button on the door, causing the door to open, then close
again to deploy the ramp. The door should have reopened. It did not reopen and
the boy and father were separated, the boy on the platform and the father inside
the train. The door and ramp function is still under investigation, but the ramp
deployment process may have been overridden, causing the ramp deployment to be
interrupted.



A woman on the platform is standing by the boy. She pressed the button for the
door but the door didn't open. The dad was inside, pushing the door open button
as well. Other doors on the train opened and closed as normal, finally all
closing and the train left the station. The child was on the platform, the woman
(stranger) staying with him. She remained with the child until dad returned
about seven minutes later on a southbound train from Gateway.



Mr. Bailey reports that he pushed the intercom button inside the train to
contact the operator, with no response. It appears there was a malfunction with
the audio component of the intercom. That issue has been addressed.



While this kind of situation is rare, there are clear protocols for when a
family is separated from each other on our system. The operator is to call our
control center to report what happened. A supervisor is dispatched to the
child's location and stays with the child until he/she can be reunited. The
control center also informs the next train or bus coming to the child's location
to hold there until a supervisor or the guardian arrives. In this situation,
once Mr. Bailey talked with the operator, rail control was called and a
supervisor came to the SE Main St station. Mr. Bailey and his son had already
left.



We've been in contact to Mr. Bailey to apologize for this unfortunate situation
and gave annual passes to he and his wife for their inconvenience.



Bekki Witt, TriMet Public Information Officer