Nation in brief: Woman almost hit by subway train

A 68-year-old woman who fell onto subway tracks in Washington on Tuesday narrowly escaped an oncoming train by squeezing into a small space underneath a platform.

As a train was fast approaching, the woman was trying to get a lift onto the platform, but there wasn’t enough time. So Houston police officer Eliot Swainson, who was in town to help out with the record crowds during the inauguration, told the woman to squeeze into the space under the Metrorail platform.

After the train whizzed by the Gallery Place Metro Station, Swainson safely pulled the woman up onto the platform.

The woman, who was not identified, was traveling with a group of people when she turned to look for a friend. She lost her balance and fell onto the tracks.

Romulus, Mich.

Storekeeper learns boy’s mom dead

An 8-year-old boy lived for more than a week with the body of his dead mother before telling a concerned shopkeeper his mom was “in a better place,” police said.

The woman, 41, apparently died Jan. 9 in their apartment in the Detroit suburb of Romulus, and the boy survived in part by eating dried rice, butter and flour, authorities said.

Police did not release the names of the mother and child, who moved to Michigan from Louisiana after surviving Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Foul play was not suspected in the woman’s death.

Lee Saco told the Associated Press that the boy and his mother came into Romulus Liquor regularly for about a year and a half. But four times during the past week the boy uncharacteristically walked about a block to the store by himself – sometimes through arctic cold and other times wearing pajama bottoms.

Saco, who co-owns the store with his brother Sam, said that he was curious from the beginning, but his concern heightened on Monday when the boy tried to buy $40 worth of grocery items with his mother’s credit card. Saco then asked the boy if he could speak to his mother.

“Is she alive?” Saco asked the boy.

“She’s in a better place,” the boy replied, who later told Saco he’d tried to revive his mother by pushing on her chest in an apparent attempt at CPR.

“I sat him down, gave him chocolate milk. Then I called Romulus PD,” Saco said.

The child is in foster care while police try to locate his other relatives.