A woman got stuck beneath the skirt of a Red Line train Thursday morning at the Central Square station, prompting a delay in service as rescuers worked to extricate her.
The woman, whose name and age weren’t immediately available, suffered minor injuries after somehow getting trapped around 7:18 a.m., said MBTA Transit Police Superintendent Richard Sullivan. He said officials are investigating how the rider became trapped.
She was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, officials said.
While train service resumed just before 8 a.m., confusion initially took hold among riders and employees alike, with one conductor telling passengers on an inbound train stopped at the North Quincy station to prepare for the worst.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” the Red Line conductor said over the public address system to bewildered passengers. “It’s going to be a couple hours.”
At 7:24 a.m. the MBTA issued an alert that shuttle buses would be replacing Red Line service in both directions between Harvard and Park Street.
Cambridge fire officials tweeted around 7:45 a.m. that “the person has been extricated and will be transported to a medical facility. @CambridgeMAFire units are in the progress of clearing. Third rail power & control of the station has been returned to MBTA.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how firefighters extricated the woman.
“We have a whole host of tools that was use for these incidents,” said Cambridge Fire Chief Gerard E. Mahoney said in a brief phone interview.
The Fire Department also thanked all the first responders who rushed to the scene.
“Thank you to @CambridgePolice and @MBTATransitPD as well as @ProEMSCambridge for their assistance in Central Square — public safety teamwork always at emergency incidents,” the Fire Department tweeted.
