Metro-North crash: first victims named in aftermath of New York train disaster
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Version 0 of 1. Identities of the six victims of a deadly New York train crash began to trickle out on Wednesday as National Transportation Safety Board workers examined the wreckage, investigators gave their initial impressions of the accident and the rail line remained partially shut down. Ellen Brody, a 49-year-old mother of three, was apparently stopped on the railroad tracks in her Mercedes SUV at about 6.30pm on Tuesday evening when the Metro-North commuter train slammed into the vehicle – pushing it about 1,000 feet down the snowy line and jamming the electrified third rail through the vehicle behind the driver’s seat. The third rail pierced the first rail car and for 400 feet broke apart and piled up inside in 80-foot sections, starting a fire. Five passengers and Brody were killed. Train passengers Eric Vandercar, 53, a senior managing director at Mesirow Financial and married father of three, and Walter Liedtke, a 69-year-old painting curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, were among those killed, according to the Journal News in Westchester county. A dozen people inside the train were seriously injured and brought to Westchester medical center’s trauma unit, where doctors described injuries including “lacerations to contusions, some crush injuries ... open fractures, some dislocations, as well as smoke and inhalation exposure as well as flame injuries”. As of Wednesday afternoon doctors at the medical center said one patient was in critical condition, one in serious condition, four in fair condition and two in good conditions. Four were discharged from the hospital. “It’s a horrific accident no matter what way you look at it,” said Westchester county executive Rob Astorino, who had been in touch with several family members of the deceased. “Unfortunately there’s always human error every day and around the world. This might have been human error but we need to let the investigation go forward.” NTSB investigators, led by railroad expert Michael Hiller, started collecting what is known as “perishable evidence” on Wednesday afternoon after arriving at about 10am. Evidence such as tracks made in the snow by the accident and gravel spray patterns would be documented first, officials said. “Basically the big question everybody wants to know is: why was this vehicle in the crossroad?” said Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB board member. Sumwalt said interviews of train operators and conductors would likely start on Thursday. Three-dimensional and high-definition aerial images of the wreckage were taken on Wednesday and experts on everything from fire safety to medical records were on the scene. Officials said the accident was rare because of the extent of damage and the worst in the railroad’s history. Crossing accidents were not uncommon but typically train passengers were not so severely injured, Sumwalt said. “Usually it is not endangering the occupants of the train,” he said. “We intend to find out what makes this accident different.” There has been a string of accidents on the Metro-North railroad. One train derailed near the northern edge of New York City on 1 December 2013, killing four people and injuring 70. It had been travelling nearly three times over the speed limit for the section of track where it crashed, investigators said. Earlier in 2013 two Metro-North passenger trains collided between Fairfield and Bridgeport, Connecticut, injuring more than 70 people and halting services. The NTSB released a report in late 2014 that identified common safety issues with the railroad following investigations into five accidents that left six people dead and another 126 injured between May 2013 and March 2014. But “I would be very careful about drawing a nexus between what happened to Metro-North in the past and this accident”, Sumwalt said. On Wednesday afternoon, with the sun peeking through low-slung gray clouds, a Little Giant crane outfitted to ride on rails wheeled up to the wreckage. A line of two dozen journalists looked on from across the highway and northbound motorists rubbernecked at the ghastly scene. The train itself was blackened around the windows by smoke and bulged unevenly at the roof, like a heated tin can. Nearby trees were frosted by the previous night’s firefighting efforts and temperatures hovered around freezing through the day. The SUV was crumpled beneath the first rail car, wedged underneath and inconspicuous amid the sheer mass of the train, with the crane dangling its hook above and puffing out a cloud of exhaust. But by 4pm the crane and wreckage remained unmoved. “The entire interior of the first rail car was burned out,” said Sumwalt. “The initial indications, and this is an initial indication subject to more science, were that the fire was fueled by gasoline from the SUV.” Transportation officials said the way the electrified third rail pierced the car and then the first train car would be thoroughly investigated by transportation officials. NTSB investigators will look at whether the rail remained electrified as it broke apart inside the train car or whether the circuit had been broken as per its design. They will examine whether the rail met federal standards, whether the crossing and the signal met federal standards, whether the car itself was properly designed and if emergency exits were sufficient. Whether the evacuation was effective remains another open question. Witnesses talked about a chaotic scene of passengers punching out windows and fleeing without coats, disoriented and stumbling through snow. “I saw the train coming to a stop with a burning car attached to it,” said Michael Wolfert, the owner of the The Cliffs, a rock climbing gym located across the highway from the accident scene. “I helped the people that had jumped out of the car without their coats,” said Wolfert, who let about 200 commuters sit in his gym for three hours after the accident, gave them water and food, and unplugging his computer so they could charge phones. A worker at a nearby Gulf gas station said commuters from the train flooded in after the accident. People usually approached from the train station but the accident was in the opposite direction. “When they’re all coming this way – something happened,” he said. “Like 10 people came in here looking for a cab.” Later, Pinto said, more than a dozen commuters huddled in a nearby funeral home when he attended a scheduled wake. “That threw me way off,” he said. Valhalla is a tiny suburban Westchester county town of about 3,000 people – the downtown hamlet being little more than a few shops lined up along the railroad station. The accident scene is wedged between the Gate of Heaven and Mount Pleasant cemeteries, an area crowded with gravestone retailers. Brody’s SUV was apparently sitting at the Commerce Street railroad crossing when the train hit her car, a local street that crosses a state-owned highway and the railroad-owned crossing. Astorino did not indicate there would be an investigation of other railroad crossings in the county and said the department of transportation does that “all the time.” He nevertheless said the area had caused “confusion” for motorists in the past. “That is the exact spot that I enter the parkway in the morning when I go to work,” Astorino said. “From a perspective from drivers that is an area that has worried me, and is an area that I’m going to speak to the state to see what can be done in that particular location.” Train service north of the accident on the Harlem Line was suspended “until further notice”, said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the Metro-North railroad. MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said roughly 45,000 riders taking the Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem Line on an average weekday, about 14,000 of whom boarded north of where the crash occurred, would be directly affected. NTSB investigators were expecting to remain on the scene for between five and seven days, releasing preliminary findings as they were verified. Final accident reports from the NTSB can take upwards of a year. Metro-North is the second-largest commuter railroad in the US. It is the northern suburbs arm of the largest transit network in North America, New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Each weekday the about 285,000 passengers ride Metro-North trains. |