London, April 29: A dead body was run over more than 300 times and 14 hours by London Underground trains and it was only after this savagery that people realised that it was a body of a human and not of an animal as initially believed. The railway officials and others offered an explanation for not paying attention to the dead body: They thought that the dead body was a corpse of a fox and not human. Strange but true and also, tragic. Human eyes fail where they ought not to and this one instance is a reminder of the engrossed lives we live in with the subject of engrossment being, ourselves.

News reports claim that the dead body was spotted on the tracks in a tunnel of the Piccadilly line and that the body remained there for about 14 hours between the Holborn and Russell Square. It's believed that the man was a 47-year old and belonged to Maidstone in Kent, England.

The discovery of the man's body is equally dramatic. It so happened that a train service in the tunnel had to be interrupted after a trip switch was activated (a trip switch is a safety switch that automatically stops electricity from flowing to a machine if a dangerously large current is created by the machine failing to operate as it should). A staff member was sent to find the reason for the tripped switch, he saw a corpse but thought it was a dead fox.

The staff member informed controllers at Earl's Court that he spotted the partial remains of an animal which was probably a fox. Though a source was quoted as saying that no fox had been spotted in the Center of the Piccadilly line tunnels for over a decade and a half.

The British Transport police were then called around 2 am in the night of December 29. After going through the CCTV footage, the police concluded that the corpse belonged to a human as they had seen a man entering the tunnel at Holborn.

A spokesperson expressed his condolence and said that his and the Railways Tunnel Staff's thoughts are with the family and friends of the deceased person found in the tunnel between Holborn and Russell Square stations on December 29, 2017. An extremely tragic end to a life, one would say.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 29, 2018 04:06 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).