Woman Leap From Platform At Holyoke MB'FA Station

As 28-year-old woman jumped in front of an MBTA train at the Harvard/Holyoke stop at about 9:15 p.m. last night, police officials and witnesses said yesterday.

The woman, whom police and hospital officials declined to identify, apparently broke both legs and one arm as well as suffering cuts and bruises.

Cambridge Police Sergeant Joseph McSweeney said last night that the train's wheels apparently did not touch the woman, adding that she did not come into contact with the track's electrified third rail. She was found under the train's second car.

"I would say she hit the train and then lay [between the tracks] rigid," McSweeney speculated. "If she would have turned over, she would have been dead," he added.

Witnesses said she was standing by herself on the station's platform and then jumped onto the tracks about six feet in front of the train as it was arriving in the station.

"{She} just dove in front of the train like she was jumping into a swimming pool," said Floyd L. Bailey, one of about 25 passengers on the platform.

The train's conductor immediately stopped the train and ordered bystanders off the platform, witnesses said.

The bystanders said they could hear the woman screaming after the train halted. "That was the most agonizing part," one woman said. "It sounded like it was coming from inside but it went on for a while. It must have been her."

Police officials declined to comment last night on whether the woman was attempting to commit suicide when she jumped in front of the train.

The woman was taken to Mt. Auburn Hospital by the Cambridge Fire Department rescue squad. Hospital officials last night would not release information on the woman's condition.