California Train Collision

[janicelee]

With a hurricane doing severe damage in Texas, I'm afraid that the tragedy in California, which has so far claimed 24 lives, with a very real possibility of more bodies being discovered has largely been overlooked by the national media.

My thoughts, prayers and positive energy go out to the families of the dead, and for the speedy recovery, of more then a 100 people who were injured in this terrible tragedy.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/13/train.collision/index.html


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[wheezer]

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[dojewo]

I've been trying to catch more on this news too. Prayers going out for all the families.

[PinkPony]

KTLA News

September 17, 2008

SIMI VALLEY -- One local family whose loved one died in the Metrolink collision is still questioning something that happened that night.

They got several phone calls from 49-year-old Chuck Peck after the crash. But they now know he died on impact.

Peck's fiancee, Andrea Katz, told KTLA that the first call was to his son in Utah.

"...and he said my dad just called me and I said, what did he say? Is he okay? Where is he? He didn't say anything, the phone rang and it said dad," Peck's fiance Andrea Katz told KTLA.

As firefighters worked to rescue survivors, family members said Peck's cell phone kept calling his son, his brother, his stepmother, his sister and his fiancee.

But when they answered all they heard was static.

And when family members called back, the calls went straight to voice mail.

In all, family members say they received about 35 calls from Peck's cell phone through the night.

Nearly five hours after the crash at 9:08 p.m., Katz received a call.

"We were yelling in the phone, hang in there baby. We're gonna get you out. You're gonna be okay," Katz said.

When the rescue efforts turned to recovery, there was another call, which prompted search crews to trace it. They realized it was coming from the first train so they went back in one last time.

"And they were so excited they had this incredible adrenaline rush at thought that they could possibly go find another survivor... we gave her a description and they spent the next couple of hours looking for him and they did end up finding him and they said that he had died immediately on impact and there was no way he could have been calling us," Katz said.

The calls stopped at 3:28 a.m., about an hour before Peck's body was found.

Katz said the phone calls helped the family get through the night.

"The intellectual side of my brain thinks gee, it was a computer malfunction and then the emotional side of my brain, it was just Chuck letting us know that he knew that we were scared for him and letting us have hope."

Katz said she also finds comfort in knowing she and Peck were happy and that he didn't suffer in the end.

"He died instantly and he didn't suffer and when you love somebody you couldn't ask for a better way for them to leave this life, just happy and excited and didn't see it coming."

Investigators said they may never know how those calls were made because Peck's phone was never found.

They also say his body showed no sign that he lived even for a short time after the crash.




http://www.ktla.com/content_landing_page/?Train-Victims-Cell-Kept-Calling-Loved-On=1&blockID=60713&feedID=1080

[packy]

How strange but yet a heartwarming story, PinkPony. My prayers go out for all the victims and their families of that horrible wreck.

I heard there was another accident today but didn't get the details of where or what train was involved.

[TobyTiger]

CHATSWORTH RESIDENTS PLAN VIGIL TONIGHT FOR METROLINK VICTIMS (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-traincrash20-2008sep20,0,1432654.story)

The service at the Chatsworth train station is being organized by two local teenagers, who seek to honor victims and survivors of the crash that killed 25, and recognize the efforts of rescue workers.

By Rich Connell and Robert J. Lopez, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
10:53 AM PDT, September 19, 2008
Chatsworth residents are planning a candlelight vigil tonight to honor the victims, survivors and rescue workers of the Metrolink crash that killed 25 people and injured 135 one week ago.

The service at the Chatsworth train station is being organized by two local teenagers, Haley Giz, 15, and Kristen Kiertzner, 17, said Judy Daniels, president of the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council.


"The two teens wanted to acknowledge not only the people who died but all those on the train at the time," Daniels said. "They just wanted a chance for the community to have some closure and to acknowledge all of the people involved."

The girls decorated several hundred tea lights that they will hand out to participants to recognize the survivors of the crash -- which occurred just steps away from some residents' homes -- and special candles representing each of those who died, Daniels said.

The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 6:45 p.m. at 10046 Old Depot Plaza Road.

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[TobyTiger]

How strange but yet a heartwarming story, PinkPony. My prayers go out for all the victims and their families of that horrible wreck.

I heard there was another accident today but didn't get the details of where or what train was involved.

METRO TRAIN, BUS COLLIDE IN DOWNTOWN L.A. (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-metro20-2008sep20,0,355169.story)

By Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
10:55 AM PDT, September 19, 2008
A Metro Blue Line train collided with a Metro bus in downtown Los Angeles this morning, causing minor injuries to 15 people, authorities said.

The collision, which occurred near Washington Boulevard and Griffith Avenue, was reported about 6:15 a.m. as the Blue Line train was traveling south to Long Beach, said Officer Ana Aguirre of the Los Angeles Police Department.


Paramedics have taken 15 people with "just bumps and bruises," to area hospitals, said d'Lisa Davies, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. Officials initially reported that seven to 13 people had been injured.

The bus was not carrying any passengers. All the injuries were to people on the three-car Blue Line train, including the operator, said Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. The collision caused the train to derail, but it remained upright, he said.

Authorities are still trying to determine why the crash occurred, said Metro spokesman Marc Littman.

more at the link

[PinkPony]

How strange but yet a heartwarming story, PinkPony. My prayers go out for all the victims and their families of that horrible wreck.

I heard there was another accident today but didn't get the details of where or what train was involved.

Hi packy

I found this story heartwarming also. To think that this family was given hope and peace in such a strange way.

I had heard about the other accident also but didn't have time to search. I see TobyTiger has posted it for us. Thanks Toby.

PP

[packy]

Thanks for finding that, Toby. Glad there were no deaths.

[Roamer]

I choose to believe it was their loved one calling to help them through this terrible tragedy, and to help rescuers find his body.

If it was prank calls by someone who found the phone, they would have spoken, or just made a couple and started calling their own friends.

Is this the wreck where the engineer was supposed to be text messaging when it happened?

[TobyTiger]

LIVES ALTERED IN AND OUTSIDE OF L.A. TRAIN COLLISION (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26806633/)

updated 4:04 p.m. PT, Sat., Sept. 20, 2008
LOS ANGELES - It was shaping up as a perfect afternoon when Kipp Landis climbed aboard the doomed Metrolink 111 train at Union Station.

Landis had managed to get away from his law office early, giving him just enough time to catch the 3:35 p.m. train to Moorpark to coach his 5-year-old son Jett's soccer team. Along with his briefcase, he was carrying a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts for his players.

Before leaving the station, train engineer Robert Sanchez, a diabetic, phoned in his dinner order to a deli just down the street from Metrolink's Moorpark station, the last stop on his run. He told Hub Hoagies 'N More owner Randy Richardson he'd be there about 4:30 p.m. to pick up the roast beef sandwich — no onion, no tomato, extra light mayo and Italian dressing.

Neither Sanchez nor Landis would make it to that final stop.

Sanchez would die in the cab of his locomotive after driving through a red light and head-on into a freight train, killing 24 passengers. Landis would join many of his fellow passengers at an emergency room, fighting for his life.

The tragedy of Sept. 12 would forever alter the lives of hundreds of people, from the 222 on board to those who should have been on the train but missed it, to the relatives of riders who were killed, to the veteran first-responders who labeled it the most horrific thing they'd ever seen.

'A beautiful day'
For Landis, the ride home began uneventfully with him taking his usual seat in the train's first car.

"It was a beautiful day, it was perfect," he recalled, describing one of those idyllic, sun-splashed Southern California afternoons seen on postcards.

A Metrolink rider for nearly 13 years, he ignored warnings of friends who called the front of the train the "suicide car." He figured he'd be safe as long as he sat with his back to the engine so that he wouldn't pitch forward if the train hit something. It never occurred to him that the train might run head-on into an oncoming locomotive going 40 mph.

The first 45 minutes of the ride were uneventful. Landis chatted with a young woman he worried would doze off and miss her stop.

She got off at the Chatsworth station, and about two minutes later — 4:22 p.m. — the 42-year-old attorney and Moorpark planning commissioner heard a gigantic bang.

"The next thing I remember, I was telling myself to breathe," Landis said from his hospital bed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last week.

'So much carnage'
Minutes after the crash, Dr. Marc Eckstein was pulling up to his San Fernando Valley home when he heard a bulletin on the radio about a train crash.

Eckstein, medical director for the Los Angeles Fire Department, put the car's emergency lights and siren on and raced to the scene 10 minutes away. A veteran of earthquakes, deadly fires and a 2005 Metrolink train crash that killed 11 people, Eckstein was stunned by what he saw.

"I've been doing emergency medicine for 25 years," since he was a teenage paramedic in New York in the 1980s, said Eckstein, 44. "I have never seen so much carnage like this in one place in my career."

Firefighters from nearby Station 77 could see smoke rising from the freight train's locomotive as they arrived. It was engulfed by flames, and two of its crew members were trapped inside and frantically pounding on the windshield for help.

"That was a challenge, getting through that front windshield, because it's essentially like bulletproof glass. And they got those guys out, saved their lives," said fire Capt. Thomas Moore, 49. He said firefighters try to focus on moments like those rather than dwell on the people they couldn't save.

Near the fire, the Metrolink's locomotive was embedded in the first passenger car. Eckstein could see bodies of several riders ripped to pieces and intertwined with metal debris from the train. Some were stacked on top of injured passengers.

much more at the link
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[emmeblu]

:1222423:For all the victims and their families.:1222423:

What a tragic loss and a senseless loss. If the conductor was in fact text paging, then I hope the California transit authority will pass a law saying that employees cannot use a cell phone while working.

[TobyTiger]

:1222423:For all the victims and their families.:1222423:

What a tragic loss and a senseless loss. If the conductor was in fact text paging, then I hope the California transit authority will pass a law saying that employees cannot use a cell phone while working.

CELL PHONE BAN PASSES FOR CALIFORNIA TRAIN OPERATORS (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/09/18/train-cell-phone.html)

California regulators have issued a temporary order banning all train operators from using cellphones while they are on duty.

The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously passed an emergency order Thursday that bans the use of cellphones and all other personal electronic devices while operating a train.

The ban comes less than a week after a commuter train ran a stop signal and slammed into an oncoming freight train near Los Angeles, killing 25 people and injuring more than 130 others.

Federal safety authorities said Wednesday that an examination of phone records showed that the engineer on the commuter train did send text messages while on duty the day of the collision, but officials would not say when the messages were sent or whether text messaging played a role in the collision.

more at the link

[TobyTiger]

SEVERAL PORTRAITS EMERGE OF ENGINEER IN CRASH (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/us/21engineer.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)

LOS ANGELES — He lived a solitary life, working long days and long nights as the engineer of a commuter train that crawled across Southern California, making stop after routine stop. He loved trains, so much that he encouraged teenagers who showed their own enthusiasm for the rails, exchanging text messages while he was at work, one boy asserted last week. That, the authorities say, may have contributed to the worst California train disaster in 50 years.

In the week since a Metrolink passenger train collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train, conflicting portraits of the engineer, Robert M. Sanchez, have emerged. Mr. Sanchez, 46, who did not brake before the crash, died along with 24 others; more than 130 people were injured. Investigators are considering whether he might have been distracted by sending or receiving text messages at the time.

Accusations that he was sending messages have stirred outrage from blogs and online forums. Some neighbors in La Crescenta, the suburb northeast of Los Angeles where he had lived for three years, said this week that the engineer was reclusive and cold. His home, its shades drawn, with a dirt yard and white walls, stood out from the flowerbeds and colorful houses near it.

But friends and colleagues of Mr. Sanchez described him as warm and conscientious, a mentor to the teenage railroad aficionados who may have been on the receiving end of his text messages that day.

He also struggled with diabetes, some friends said, and long hours on the job made it hard for him to maintain friendships. He carried well-concealed grief, one friend said, after the death of his partner, Daniel Burton, in 2003.

“Rob was very upbeat and very enthusiastic,” said Lilian Barber, 77, a dog breeder in Murrieta who became friends with Mr. Sanchez five years ago when he called her for advice on breeding the Italian greyhound, Ignatia, he had owned with Mr. Burton.

Mr. Sanchez found her on the American Kennel Club Web site in 2003. “We hit it off,” she said. “We both like ethnic foods, and he wanted to learn about breeding.” Mr. Sanchez bred his dog with one of Ms. Barber’s, and talked with her often about the three puppies that were born, she said.

Ms. Barber said she took Mr. Sanchez to a dog show in San Francisco in 2004. He rented a tuxedo for the occasion.

The two had regular lunch dates at Thai, Indian and Brazilian restaurants for two years, until his work schedule made it difficult to meet. He had a big appetite, and it showed in the extra weight he carried on his 6-foot 2-inch frame.

His diet may have exacerbated his diabetes, Ms. Barber said. Last year Mr. Sanchez told her he had been put on medical leave by his employer, Connex Railroad, after his blood sugar tested at dangerous levels during a medical checkup.

more at the link

[grammybears]

How sad for everybody involved. I hope and pray for a speedy recovery for all that survived.
My husband and myself have had diabetes for a number of years. It is a disease that puts a person through a lot. My youngest sister had to have one of her legs amputated because of her diabetes. The engineer if true had no right to be texting while on duty and especially when an accident is possible if you are not focusing all of your attention of driving. I sure hope changes are made so this never happens again.
I have seen many drivers who talk on the phone while driving. They can lose sight so easily of any problems that may come up.
When I am driving I do not answer my phone. If someone is with me they will answer my phone and tell the other party I will call them back when I have stopped somewhere. My husband is the same way. You cannot be to careful when you are driving.
My hope and prayers go out to all the family and friends who had a loved one die. I also hope they will be given the strength they need to move forward from this.

jmoo

[KYGramma]

For all families involved....:1222423:

How very sad.