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At top speed a child inside a train jumps off and is unharmed. Now influenced, another child jumps off and sprains his ankle. Landing on cement and without assistance, the children rush to the hospital to provide moral support for their relative who is in critical condition as a result of exiting the same train while it was not moving.
Why weren’t either of the children seriously injured?
Here is what I think happened:
What really caught my attention was "Landing on cement". This to me implies that the children's relative did not "step off" the train as one would normally do. Perhaps the relative tripped and fell between the train and the platform. Falls can be quite nasty if you hit the ground in a bad posture, which can explain the critical condition.
As for why the children weren't seriously injured as they jumped off the train while it was going at top speed:
Maybe "top speed" doesn't refer to the train's actual top speed, but rather the top speed the driver is legally allowed to drive it at in that area. The children would probably jump off once the train is close to its destination, which means its top speed is probably quite low as it is pulling in to the station. Also the fact that they "rush to the hospital" implies that they saw the accident happening, which makes it even more likely that they jumped off the train shortly before it stopped.
Maybe the train's top speed wasn't that high, as Spacemonkey suggested.
Maybe they jumped off and landed on something soft? Though that wouldn't work well with the "Landing on cement" piece.
My answer:
The children were on a train that for whatever reason had a very low top speed. (Could be an antique, a toy train, w/e). They jumped off because they could see the train was about to have an accident. The train crashes afterwards , and their relative who hadn't jumped gets out, injured, and is rushed to the hospital. Children go to visit the relative.
Here's an alternative take.
The train that the two children jumped from safely was
a children's train ride at Disney World or a comparable amusement park (but really, is there one?).
And this explains the low top speed of the train, as well as why they landed on cement. You know, ADA, and all.
The children's relative was also
on a fun trip to the park and tried to join the kids on the train ride. However, being an adult and far too big, the relative could not maneuver in his/her seat. This resulted in the relative hitting his/her head on a low tunnel, then needing to be pried out of the small seat, unconscious,
while the children were able to slide out of any restraints and jump to safety.
I know this is answered, but here's an alternative answer that explains how it might have happened in a different way:
The train doesn't move sideways, it goes up and down (It's a novelty restaurant made by a train carriage attached under a helium balloon). As the train starts to ascend at full upwards speed it is still not very high above the ground, the first child jumps at this point. After the first child jumps, the pilot stopped the ascent and the balloon slowed its ascent. The second child jumps a few seconds later and it's a bit higher, so he sprains his ankle. The balloon continues slowing its ascent and stops a bit higher still. The relative then jumps when the train is no longer moving, hovering at a fixed height and gets badly injured.
Another alternative:
The train is metaphorical for drinking/doing drugs. The first child "jumped off" or stopped participating when things were going at full speed. They avoided injury. The next child waited a little too long and ended up with some damage from the night, but avoided most of it. The relative partied way too hard and ended up needing medical intervention for his addiction.
It depends on where and when you jumped:
The relative jumped off the train onto the adjacent tracks and was hit by an oncoming train going the other direction. This second train then stopped upon realizing that it had hit someone, while the first one started moving. It got to full speed before anyone knew what was going on - that's when the first child jumped from one train to the other, an easy jump since they're at the same height. He had time because he was in the front car of the train, while the relative was hit at the front of the second train. However, by the time the second child went to jump, he was too late and had to jump from the train to the ground, spraining his ankle.
