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NTSB Investigating LIRR Gap Death

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Aug 24, 2006 7:53 am US/Eastern

NTSB Investigating LIRR Gap Death

MELVILLE, N.Y. (CBS/AP) ― Federal officials are investigating the death of a Minnesota teenager who fell into a gap between a commuter train and a platform earlier this month.

Terry Williams, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said Wednesday that the agency has an investigator in New York examining the cause of the accident that killed Natalie Smead.

The 18-year-old slipped through an almost foot-wide gap between a Long Island Rail Road car and the platform on Aug. 5 and was struck by a train going the other way.

State authorities said earlier this week that they would study the safety of the gaps following Smead's death.

The study is expected to take more than six months and could include recommendations such as widening train cars or installing moveable platforms at certain stations of the Metro-North Railroad and the LIRR, the nation's two largest commuter railroads.

The LIRR also has started a separate count of gap widths at all of its 124 stations.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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