Well Done, Vienna Metro Employees!

From anonymous:

I got on an Orange Line train at Vienna station yesterday morning around 8:30 a.m. I sat down and then heard a man asking if anyone had tissues.

I'm used to people making strange requests on Metro--the other night a drunk man who boarded at Metro Center was directing people where to sit and stand--so I ignored it, until he said he needed the tissues to stop the bleeding.

He had apparently fallen and hit his head on the metal bar atop one of the seats and he was bleeding profusely.

A woman jumped up and gave him a stack of napkins and ran out to flag down a Metro employee on the platform.

I ran up and gave him a package of Kleenex.

He was cut rather badly, and as soon as the tissues were applied, they became soaked with blood. I won't go into the details, but it was a really nasty gash.

I was standing next to the man handing him tissues and was boxed in between the partition and the door. Another woman stood up to offer tissues, and just then, the announcement came on that the doors were going to close.

I yelled for the woman to hit the emergency button, as I couldn't get to it, and she did, telling the operator we had a medical emergency.

Another rider stood in between the doors to stop them from closing. The man started to become dizzy, and the woman who had hit the emergency button told him to sit down to avoid hurting himself further in case he passed out.

This all happened in a minute or two, but it seemed like a lot longer.

To everyone's relief, the train operator responded in a calm and respectful manner, stating he had heard us and help was coming.

A few seconds later, the first woman returned with a WMATA employee, a man, who very kindly took the injured rider by the arm (He was older, likely in his late 50s or early 60s.) and lead him off the train.

Another WMATA employee, a woman, got on the train a few seconds later, looked around and saw the blood on the seats and floor (It wasn't a lot, but you could see it.) and said that due to the blood, we all needed to move to another car.

She said the operator would give us enough time to switch cars, and she apologized for the inconvenience.

As we started to move, I saw that the male WMATA employee was supporting the man as they walked toward the elevators.

All in all, the train likely only departed Vienna two or three minutes late.

Considering the horror stories I've heard and have experienced with WMATA, I was beyond impressed at how responsive and professional the staff at the Vienna station were.

When the announcement came that the doors were about to close, I assumed we were about to experience the worst case scenario: The emergency button wouldn't work, the first woman wouldn't be able to flag down a WMATA employee, we likely wouldn't have much luck at Dunn Loring, but I was thankfully proven wrong.

Kudos to the WMATA employees at the Vienna station yesterday morning and for the professional way they handled an unexpected situation!