A mother was carrying her baby, bags and a stroller down NYC’s subway stairs. She fell and died.

Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Eli Rosenberg.

New York City was reeling after a 22-year-old mother carrying shopping bags, a stroller and her 1-year-old baby daughter fell down a flight of subway station stairs and died Monday. As people mourned the death, the incident renewed discussion about accessibility in one of the world’s largest transit systems.

The woman, Malaysia Goodson, of Stamford, Conn., was found unconscious at about 8 p.m. Monday in a stairwell of the subway station on Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street, police said. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Lt. Paul Ng, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said that Goodson was carrying her baby, who was unharmed, in her arms. Some media reports said that Goodson was carrying the child in a stroller.

A 22 year old Stamford mother died last night after falling down the subway stairs in Manhattan. Malaysia Goodson had her 1 year old daughter with her, strapped into a stroller. Family tells us the child is ok. Hear from her grieving brother today on @News12CT. pic.twitter.com/ccRnsOFJc9
— Marissa Alter (@MarissaAlter) January 29, 2019

It was not immediately clear if Goodson was affected by a medical condition. The medical examiner’s office, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to a request for information. The agency that runs New York’s subway system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said in a statement it had found the stairs, railing and floor at the station where Goodson was found in good condition.

“This is an absolutely heartbreaking incident,” the agency said in a statement.

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Dieshe Goodson, Malaysia’s brother, told News 12 Connecticut that his sister had been in Manhattan for a shopping trip, saying she had a lot of bags with her in addition to the stroller.

“When I was on my way to the hospital last night, I was praying that it wasn’t her the whole time,” he told the television station.

A larger issue of accessibility

New York has the most subway stations of any transit system in the world. But three-quarters of its 472 stations do not have elevators, lifts or other features to make them fully accessible to those who are unable to use stairs, according to MTA. For the stations that do have elevators, service outages have been a long-standing complaint.

The lack of accessibility in our subways is literally killing people. I am heartbroken by this tragedy, and am keeping this family in my thoughts. NYC must do more for families and the disabled. https://t.co/X2w91JdKtD
— NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) January 29, 2019

A group of disability and transit advocates planned to gather at the Manhattan subway station on Wednesday to call on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D-New York) to commit to a plan for full subway accessibility.

The MTA said it was working on a plan to ensure that riders will never be more than two stops away from a station with an elevator, saying it planned to add as many as 50 elevators in the next five years.

Disability organizations and disabled residents sued the MTA in 2017, arguing that New York’s subway system was one of the least accessible in the United States. The two lawsuits, in state and federal court, are both still active.