Girl, 4, falls into gap

A 4-year-old girl fell 4 feet onto the tracks through a

gap between the platform and an LIRR train in Penn Station yesterday afternoon

just before it was set to leave.

Police sources said the girl's name is Britney Walker.

She slipped through the gap at 4:30 p.m. as she and her family boarded the

4:31 p.m. Huntington-bound train, but Long Island Rail Road officials said she

was quickly scooped out of danger by Metropolitan Transportation Authority

police after they were alerted by witnesses.

"They need to fix these," the girl's mother, Terrian Walker, told WCBS-TV.

"They really do. A lot of people are going to get hurt by these."

The Walkers moved to the area three months ago from Jackson, Miss., because

their home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Walker said she and her husband lost sight of Britney as the family got on

the train at Track 18.

Susan McGowan, a Long Island Rail Road spokeswoman, said the girl was taken

to Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan for observation, but she suffered

only a few scratches.

The accident comes as the LIRR fields a torrent of criticism in the four

weeks since a tourist, 18-year-old Natalie Smead of Minnesota, fell through a

gap at the Woodside station and was fatally struck by a train when she crawled

to the other side of the platform in an attempt to climb up.

The Aug. 5 incident, followed by a Newsday survey of some platforms that

found at least one gap measuring 15 inches in the Syosset station, prompted

LIRR officials to launch their own study in conjunction with National

Transportation Safety Board officials.

McGowan said the size of the gap that the young girl fell through yesterday

was unavailable, but that it has become a subject of the LIRR's ongoing

inquiry into the problem.

State Sens. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and Nicholas Spano (R-Yonkers)

announced still another study with New York State Department of Transportation

Commissioner Tom Madison.

"It just shows that even with all of the signs that say 'Mind the gap,'

that you can't do enough," said Jerry Bringmann, chairman of LIRR Commuter's

Council.

"Thank God we averted a tragedy today."