A “brave and heroic” father has died after being struck by a train while trying to rescue his twin daughters whose pram had rolled on to the tracks in Australia.
One of the two-year-old girls was also killed while the other sister was not injured in the tragedy at Carlton railway station in Sydney on Sunday, Australia’s 9News reported.
New South Wales (NSW) Police Superintendent Paul Dunstan said the girls’ mother, who was uninjured, witnessed the tragedy and has been left “incredibly traumatised”.
Supt Dunstan told reporters the parents had taken a lift down to the station platform where they took their hands off the pram for a “very, very short period of time”.
The pram then rolled towards the train tracks, he added.
Supt Dunstan said it was unclear if the pram rolled due to a gust of wind.
Police were called to the scene at around 12.25pm local time after witnesses saw a pram roll from the platform and into the path of an oncoming train.
The train was not due to stop at the station and appeared to have slowed before the collision, according to reports.
Supt Dunstan said officers could hear crying as they located the pram.
He added: “Police then climbed under the train and rescued one of the children who was thankfully unharmed, and reunited her with her mother.
“Sadly the other child, a two-year-old female, and her father who had attempted to save the child, have passed away as a result of this incident.”
He added: “(The father) has gone into parent mode and tried to save his two young daughters that have fallen on to the tracks and in doing so it’s cost his life, but it’s an incredibly brave and heroic act.”
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The mother, 39, and the surviving two-year-old girl were taken to hospital and were in stable conditions, ABC News in Australia reported.
Supt Dunstan said the mother was “obviously very traumatised” and is being supported by the local community.
He added that the daughter who survived had fallen between the tracks and was “lucky” to have escaped injury.
NSW Premier Chris Minns told reporters outside St George Police Station in Sydney that the 40-year-old father died after an “extraordinary act of bravery”.
He added: “That’s not going to bring him or his little daughter back but it shouldn’t go unremarked upon that in the face of a terrible, terrible accident he gave his own life to try to save his children.”
Fire and rescue workers were reportedly seen jumping on to the train tracks to start the process of removing the bodies from under the train more than two hours after the tragedy.