Photo/Illutration An Ueno-Tokyo Line train operates in Taito Ward in central Tokyo in June. (Jin Hirakawa)

A man who died on a train in the Tokyo area shuttled between stations across multiple prefectures for half a day before his corpse was finally noticed by a railway worker.

The man, a 50-year-old company employee from Tokyo, boarded the train on the Shonan-Shinjuku Line at Shibuya Station at 8:02 a.m. on May 11. The train had started from Zushi Station in Kanagawa Prefecture and was bound for Utsunomiya Station in Tochigi Prefecture.

He suffered a heart attack that morning and died in a window seat on car No. 14, according to a doctor’s report.

At around 7:40 p.m. that Saturday, an employee at JR Odawara Station in Kanagawa Prefecture patrolled the inside of the 15-car train following its arrival. It was scheduled to go out of service for the day.

The worker called the emergency 119 number to report “a male passenger with no pulse,” according to the Yokohama branch of East Japan Railway Co. (JR East).

Although a cardiac massage was performed with an automated external defibrillator (AED), the man’s death was confirmed at the station. Police determined that no criminal act had taken place.

That day, the train, which accommodates up to 2,000 passengers, traveled a total of 652.7 kilometers.

It was used for the Shonan-Shinjuku Line service to reach Utsunomiya Station and returned to Tokyo as the Ueno-Tokyo Line service. The train changed direction three times with the corpse on board.

The train passed through Tokyo, Shinagawa, Yokohama and other stations that are packed even on weekends.

No passengers noticed that they were traveling with a dead man.

LONG RIDE

Japan Railway officials said passengers can use SOS buttons in cars to alert crew to emergencies. The button was not pressed after the man died.

The train waited six to 12 minutes at the platform of each terminal station when changing direction.

Only first-class coaches are cleaned during the stops, and staff do not speak to passengers unless there is something wrong.

Doors are kept open before trains leave the last stops, making it difficult for the crew to determine whether passengers are arriving or departing, according to JR officials.

The Yokohama branch of JR East declined to comment on the death.

WIDOW’S REGRET

The man’s widow, 49, says she wonders if his life could have been saved if the crew and station staff were aware of his condition earlier.

The couple had been married for 15 years.

She said he was a considerate man and would fix the furniture whenever a problem arose. He worked for a company but was also studying at a Ph.D. course for business management.

Despite his busy schedule, he attended their daughter’s junior high school entrance ceremony and other events.

The widow said she saw her husband off at the door every day, believing each farewell could be their last moment together in this disaster-prone country.

However, she was too sick to see him off on May 11. She heard him say, “I am going,” at 7:40 a.m.

NO REPLY FROM HUSBAND

The wife sent her husband a message on the Line app at 8:36 a.m. But the post remained unread.

The man was supposed to meet a friend at 10 a.m. near Oyama Station in Tochigi Prefecture. He didn’t make it to the meeting place after the train arrived around 9:30 a.m.

The widow heard from her father-in-law shortly after noon that her husband did not show up for the meeting.

She repeatedly tried to phone him through Line. He never answered.

She considered calling the police but then felt it might be inappropriate to bother them just because she couldn’t get in touch with her spouse.

When night came, Kanagawa prefectural police contacted her.

She was shocked by his death because he appeared to be in good health. She regretted failing to see him off that morning.

“He might have survived if people around him had realized his issue earlier,” she lamented. “Although he couldn’t be rescued, the fact that he was left that way for so long and not taken to a hospital is too painful for me.”

She said she hopes no one will ever experience such a tragedy or feel the way that she does.

(This article was written by Kei Teshirogi, Ayateru Hosozawa, Jin Hirakawa and Sachi Otsuta.)

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