A 57-year-old man died in Brooklyn on Monday evening after his bag was reportedly caught in closing subway doors, pulling him beneath the train.
Following a 911 call, police found Yaw Boahene “unconscious and unresponsive” on the tracks beneath a northbound A train at the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood shortly after 6 p.m., according to the New York Police Department.
Emergency medical personnel pronounced Boahene dead at the scene. Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal subway incident.
An A train arrives at a subway station in Lower Manhattan on Jan. 16, 2025, in New York City. (Zamek/Getty Images)
Boahene, who lived in Brooklyn, was leaving the train at about 6 p.m. when his shopping bag became lodged in the doors, The New York Times reported.
Cases in which subway passengers become trapped and are dragged by trains are extremely uncommon, though similar tragedies have occurred in New York City.
Police walk through Brooklyn’s Utica Avenue station while responding to an unrelated incident on June 23, 2023. (Gardiner Anderson for NY Daily News via Getty Images)
In October 2022, 20-year-old Joseph Ancona was killed at the Columbus Circle station after his bag became caught in a subway door and dragged him onto the tracks, where he was struck by the train, FOX 5 New York reported at the time.
Several months earlier, 37-year-old Marcus Bryant became trapped between a Q train and the platform at a Brooklyn station. He fell onto the tracks and was killed.
Passengers wait to board a 1 train at the 72nd Street subway station on March 23, 2025, in New York City. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
In 2019, 39-year-old Vicente Alatorre died after a train dragged him into a tunnel at Grand Central Station.
Investigators initially suspected that Alatorre’s clothing or a bag had been caught in the train doors. They later determined that neither was involved, according to The Times.