Tragedy Strikes Again On Jamaica Avenue

Wednesday, June 17

Tragedy struck again on Jamaica Avenue on Wednesday afternoon when a man either fell, or jumped, onto the tracks of the Woodhaven Boulevard stop of the elevated train line.  He landed directly in the path of an onrushing train and was killed instantly.  Our sources tell us that the victim looked to be in his 30's.  Adding weight to the theory that this may have been a horrible accident instead of a suicide was the fact that they found the type of cane generally used by the visually impaired, suggesting that the victim may have been blind.

The incident forced the closure of Jamaica Avenue in both directions from Woodhaven Boulevard to 96th Street.  Below is a picture taken recently where today's incident took place:

Eyewitnesses reported a scene that was extremely gruesome -- far too gruesome to go into details on this page.  By early this evening, Jamaica Avenue had been reopened and there was no visible sign of the carnage that existed earlier.

Today's incident comes on the heels of Sunday's murder-suicide on Jamaica Avenue and 95th Street.   Other deaths on our avenue include the April 7th hit and run that claimed the life of 71-year old Virginia Montalvo at 98th Street (still unsolved) and the April 18th hit and run that claimed the life of 43-year old Youyun Zhou at 80th Street (in which the driver was apprehended).  That's 5 deaths on Jamaica Avenue in 6 months.  (Editor's Note: And we are reminded that there was also a tragedy on Jamaica Avenue near Lefferts Boulevard in May when an Irish charity cyclist was struck and killed by a truck.  It's been a rough 6 months for Jamaica Avenue.)

Normally, we would have just linked to news accounts of this incident, but as of this writing we could not find any.  We trust that when they do, there will be more details. 

Update: As of 6AM EST, still no coverage of this incident in any media outlet that we can find (though if you search Twitter under Woodhaven you'll see lots of chatter about it).  Looks like we may need to wait for the local media (e.g. Queens Chronicle, Queens Courier, Leader-Observer) for more details on this tragic incident.  If anyone sees coverage out there that we missed, please send it along. 

If you have any comments, or would like to suggest other projects, drop us a line at info@projectwoodhaven.com or projectwoodhaven@aol.com.  

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