Horrifying: Woman Gets Pierced by Unknown Needle While Riding SF BART

Linda Quan boarded a train bound for San Francisco, California, on her way to work from Dublin BART station on Thursday morning, according to KRON4. Then, 30 minutes into the ride, she was surprised when she felt something pierced her from her seat.

“When I felt that I got up and looked at what was poking me and I felt it and didn’t know what it was and realized it was a syringe tip,” she told the network and showed the broken tip of the needle that she sat on during her BART ride.

The shock didn’t end there — after discovering that it was indeed a needle, she looked under the seat and was greeted with even more drug paraphernalia.

“It’s people’s lives and people’s safety and one puncture like that could change the rest of my life if I am infected,” she said, wondering why BART is not doing anything to prevent this from happening.

It turns out that this is not a one-time occurrence in the rapid transit public transportation system in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Anecdotally, police say they have reports similar to this once or twice a month. As far as we are concerned, that is once or twice a month too many,” Chris Filippi, a spokesman for BART, said in a statement to KRON4. “This is…serious and this is something BART needs to address and is addressing with the resources that we have.”

After the incident was reported, Quan immediately went to get herself tested out for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and hepatitis. According to the report, she is now under a month supply of medications to prevent her from contracting HIV, and she’s now taking hepatitis vaccine on top of the blood test she has to take every three months for the next year and a half.

“They are not doing enough or this would not have happened,” she said.

“I’m really worried,” Quan added. “I worried all day today and yesterday and I will probably be worried for the next 18 months.”

The train system said that they are now hiring more staff, such as police officers and cleaners, to make the public transportation system safer.

Images via KRON4