A light inner-city subway train has an average maximum speed of 70km/h, with total passenger places of 275 (54 seating & 221 standing). It has a start up acceleration of 1.2 m/s2 and weighs about 250 tons.

A three-wheeler pram, better known as an "All Terrain Pushchair" sports a gas-sprung mechanism which allows it to unfold with one touch, a lockable, double front swivel wheel, large rear pneumatic wheels, all round suspension, an adjustable soft-touch rubber handlebar, adjustable multi-position front-facing and rear facing seat, adjustable leg rest, and an all around weight of about 12.2 kg.

The average six month old human infant weighs 8.2 kg and is 81.28 cm in height.

The math is clear cut, but the reality continues to defy all logic and scientific explanation. Let's cast our minds back to an incident that occurred a little less than a year ago,-Friday 16 October 2009 to be precise- at Ashburton station in Melbourne, Australia. A day as normal as any other until, as the CCTV footage testifies, a mother waiting by the platform for the arrival of the train with her baby boy in a pram momentarily takes her hands off the three-wheeler pram's handles and fails to notice as it slowly edges towards the tracks.

Too late, the mother suddenly spots the baby carrier picking up speed and rushes forward with outstretched arms to try to save her young child, but the pram tips over the edge of the platform, sending the baby slamming head first onto the tracks below and into the direct path of the now oncoming train. The 250 ton train, customarily slowing down for its approach to the platform, slams into the pram at 35km/h to the horror of the baby's mother and the shocked onlookers, dragging it 30 metres beneath the front carriage, before coming to a slow and agonising stop.

The boy? Well, he escapes with nothing more than a slight bump on the head, and none the wiser-nor could he care less, mind you- about what's just transpired. He probably also wouldn't have given two shakes of his rattle to know that all the odds-scientific and mathematical combined- were fully stacked against him surviving the ordeal. And the mathematical probability of the very same incident occurring again with the very same outcome? That would be in the "near-impossible" stack of calculations, wouldn't it? Well, it did. 26 May 2010, Melbourne Australia, yet again. This time a 15-month old escapes with facial bruises and minor cuts to the head.

The formulaic bases of mathematics and the sciences are grounded on the tangible. In essence, anything intangible cannot be calculated and therefore cannot exist. And so any funny talk about mysterious protective forces-call them guardians, shepherds or whateverhaveyou- assigned to ensure the welfare of children is pure balderdash. Old wives' tales over snuff and hot broth. Simply insane. Maybe so, because every human being comes with a date of expiration, much like a can of corned beef: when you're off, you're off.

What i think the old wives' tales suggest however is that sometimes, just sometimes, the expiry date on the can is somehow changed and postponed to a later date, with a little help from somewhere (something?), and that this phenomenon is mostly evident around children. Shucks, who are we kidding?. It would, however be interesting to find out what the mathematical odds and probabilities would've been for each of the following wives' tales, just for interest's sake...

2 January 1995- A dazed 10-year-old girl with a broken arm emerged as the lone survivor of a plane crash in northern Colombia in which 47 passengers and five crew members were killed.

21 August 2008- Three children aged six, eight and eleven survived the Madrid air disaster, which claimed a total of 153 lives, in what rescue workers have described as “a miracle”.

30 June 2009 -A 14 year old girl was plucked from the ocean off the coast of the African Comoros Islands, the only apparent survivor from a Yemeni airliner crash that killed 152 people.

13 May 2010- A Dutch boy is the sole survivor as more than 100 die in a Libyan air crash.

And then again, maybe science requires a tangible bunch of feathers scattered around every site as hard evidence, in order to even remotely consider the impossible. Or maybe, just a mug or two of hot broth will do.

A Feather Or Two & A Mug of Hot Broth