A woman who was injured at Harvard station earlier this month when an out-of-service utility box fell on her plans to file a lawsuit against the MBTA, her lawyers announced Wednesday morning.
Video footage from the May 1 safety failure shows the box, which T officials said had served no purpose since 2013, fall from a column as other commuters stood nearby. The impact, attorneys for the woman said, led to a detached clavicle from her shoulder that “will require ongoing and long term medical treatment.”
“The injuries also impacted her rigorous academic schedule during a crucial time for students,” a statement said. “… The aging Red Line platform where the incident occurred has additional reported structural deficiencies including a leaking ceiling that resulted in a panel falling on a woman in March.”
Lawyers said the woman is a 28-year-old PhD student at Harvard University.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the agency’s top priority is “delivering safe and reliable service.
“The MBTA deeply regrets that this incident occurred, and know that we continue to work every day to ensure safety for all,” Pesaturo said in a statement to the Herald.
Attorney Thomas Flaws of Altman Nussbaum Shunnarah Trial Attorneys said he is “troubled” by ongoing issues at Harvard station and throughout the MBTA.
“With reasonable attention and maintenance, this incident would have been prevented. We intend to find out exactly what is causing dangerous objects to repeatedly detach or fall from the ceiling at the Harvard station,” Flaws said in a statement. “We want to ensure no rider utilizing public transportation is ever injured in this manner again.”
A copy of the lawsuit was not immediately available, though the woman planned to speak with the media Wednesday morning.
MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng visited the station the day the utility box fell and directed agency officials to inspect every station “for the presence of these boxes and the condition of the support straps to ensure that they do not pose a hazard.”
The Herald previously reported that inspections completed last week determined the boxes were only found on the Red Line. Pesaturo said the incident was an “isolated case.”
Gov. Maura Healey said last week that all MBTA stations were going to be inspected as soon as possible and her office would “exhaust all efforts to make sure that we have a system that is safe and that is reliable.”
“Obviously, I want to see this fixed as quickly as possible,” Healey told reporters at the State House. “It took the state a while to get into this and the T many years to get to the state, which is unacceptable. And we’re working as quickly as we can with a new GM, a new transportation safety chief, a new board that I’ve put in place.”
The utility box fell just two months after a 25-pound ceiling tile fell and nearly struck a commuter at Harvard station.