The TTC is reviewing its safety procedures and blaming human error for “an incredibly serious breach” of protocol Monday in which subway riders were still being evacuated at track level while the power rail was live.

It’s not clear how many riders were still in the tunnel when the power was restored, about 65 seconds before the riders cleared the track area at Museum Station.

At least three TTC employees, who were guiding the passengers out of the tunnel, were also still considered to be at track level.

“It should never have happened,” said TTC spokesman Brad Ross.

The electrified rail, which conducts 600 volts of electricity, is considered so dangerous even track workers are trained to treat it as if it is live and never to touch it — not even when they believe the power is off.

It’s the reason the TTC prefers never to evacuate riders through the tunnels, said Ross.

But he says passengers were never at close risk of electrification.

“At no time did the customers come near the power rail during the evacuation. The power rail was on the opposite side of the tunnel from where they were being evacuated,” he said.

The riders walked out of the tunnel via a catwalk that runs above and beside the subway tracks, about two to three metres from the electrified rail, said Ross. But at least one of the employees guiding the passengers appears to have been standing between the running rails.

A video posted at thestar.com on Tuesday shows the riders filing out of the train about 50 minutes after the power was cut in that block of the subway system.

The electricity was turned off about 6 p.m. following a suicide attempt at St. George Station. The power was restored at 7:21 p.m.

It’s up to the TTC’s transit control centre to clear each affected station before restoring the power. The St. George scene was checked and cleared. But a radio call should also have gone down to the supervisor in charge of the evacuation at Museum Station.

“It would appear that didn’t happen. We’re trying to ascertain why, what exactly the series of events were, so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Ross.

The TTC knows what happened. Now it is trying to come to grips with why the protocol was breached.

“We’ll then take some action internally to strengthen that protocol,” Ross said. “The protocol has strength around it already but is there another step, something we need to do to prevent something like this from ever happening again?”

The TTC has taken some disciplinary action toward at least one employee but Ross said it is still early in the process.

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The power outage was unusually long in the Monday incident, in part because police were initially treating it as a suspicious event, said Ross.

“We try never to evacuate through tunnels but sometimes we have to,” he said.

At the end of every subway platform is an emergency power shut-off that can be used to cut electricity in the event someone jumps or falls to track level. Use it like a fire alarm, said Ross. Cut the power and follow the directions to summon help.

A report on suicide prevention released by Toronto Public Health this week calls for the installation of subway platform doors that would prevent anyone from falling or jumping to track level.