An elderly lady is in hospital after a barrier at a train crossing came down on her wheelchair.

Dashcam footage has been shared of the incident, in which an elderly lady was being manoeuvred in her wheelchair by her daughter over London Road level crossing, in Bicester, when the barriers came down and landed on the back of the wheelchair.

The footage shows the daughter and her mother were about halfway across the crossing when the warning alarm began to sound, and they were unable to clear the area before the barrier dropped.

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The driver who shared the dashcam footage with this paper, Justin Leigh, and the driver in front of him, rushed out of their cars to lift the barrier off of the wheelchair.

Mr Leigh said: “I kept in touch with the daughter and her mum after the incident yesterday (April 4), and the daughter messaged me this morning (April 5) saying that her mother was sick overnight, with a splitting headache and has now been rushed to hospital.”

Commenting on what happened at the time, he added: “From what I could see, they had started going across and then the alarm started.

“The lady pulling the wheelchair wasn’t that young, and I’m guessing the wheelchair was fairly heavy because she seemed to be struggling with it a bit.

“The barrier had only been up for 20 seconds or so before coming down on the wheelchair, luckily it didn’t hit her in the head.

“Myself and the driver in front got out of our cars straight away to help, but it shows what can happen if people aren’t quick enough to get over the track.

“This incident could be fatal next time, she was lucky that we got to her on the right side of the barrier.

“I stayed with the lady and her daughter just to make sure they were both okay.”

Martin Colmey, operations director for Network Rail’s Central route, said: “We’re very sorry that two people were injured by a lowering level crossing barrier at London Road in Bicester.

"We are making contact with them to apologise and check how they are and want to keep in touch while we look into what happened.

"We wish them a speedy recovery in what must have been a distressing experience. 

“A thorough investigation is underway to identify anything which can be done differently to prevent this type of incident happening again.”

The new East-West Rail (EWR) route, which connects Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge, will mean that more trains run across the London Road level crossing.

Oxfordshire County Council have said the new line will mean the crossing will be closed for about 50 minutes every hour during peak hours.

Mr Leigh said: “If we’re going to be seeing the trainline closed for 50 minutes every hour, they may as well just leave the barriers down entirely.

“Close it to traffic but build a footbridge or an underpass, having it open for 10 minutes an hour just doesn’t make sense.

“For traffic, it’s not much of an inconvenience to just go around another way. There are three ways of getting into town, and I usually avoid the level crossing anyway because the traffic is always so bad.”

 

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This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1