Czech tourist electrocuted after climbing atop a Swiss train

14-year-old tourist electrocuted while climbing on a train in La Punt Keystone-SDA

A 14-year-old Czech tourist was electrocuted on Wednesday in La Punt in canton Graubünden when he climbed onto the carriage of a train leaving the station.

The accident initially went unnoticed. Seriously injured, the teenager was eventually airlifted to Zurich University Hospital.

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Shortly after 7am, the teenager climbed onto the departing Rhaetian Railway (RhB) train, according to the Graubünden cantonal police on Thursday. Once on the roof of a carriage, he was hit by an 11,000-volt discharge from the contact line. The electrocution threw him from the moving train.

As the accident went unnoticed, the alarm was not sounded until an hour later, when the driver of a freight train spotted the injured teenager lying beside the track. The train driver applied the emergency brakes and called the emergency services.

Adapted from French by DeepL/ac

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