Train Derailment in the Bronx
Four people were killed and 63 injured when a Manhattan-bound Metro-North train derailed Sunday morning in the Bronx, toppling cars and tossing passengers around like rag dolls.
At least two passengers were ejected through the windows of the eight-car Hudson line train when it skidded off the tracks at 7:20 a.m. in a sharp bend just north of the Spuyten Duyvil Station.
Officials said seven cars, including the locomotive, derailed. One car flipped down a river bank, coming to rest just inches from the water where the Harlem River meets the Hudson River.
An FDNY spokesman said 11 people were in critical condition at area hospitals.
Two women and two men were killed in the crash, a law enforcement source said.
“I was flung six feet,” said survivor Dianna Jackson, 40, of Poughkeepsie as blood streamed down her face.
Jackson said she was in the third car from the front of the train and that it landed on its side.
The engineer, Bill Rockefeller, 45, a 15-year Metro-North veteran, told officials he applied the brakes, but they didn’t respond, a source told the Daily News. Rockefeller was being treated for undisclosed injuries.
The speed limit for the curve is 30 mph. Trains normally slow from 70 mph to safely make the curve, officials said.
Gov. Cuomo said investigators recovered the train’s “black box” which records the speed and will note if the engineer tried to apply the brakes.
Among the injured was a female NYPD officer in her 20s who was on her way to work. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly visited her at St. Barnabas Hospital, where she was being treated for broken ribs and leg and shoulder injuries.
Kelly also visited four other off-duty NYPD officers who were aboard the train. Two of the cops were treated at the scene and two were taken to Montefiore Medical Center.
Hundreds of first responders raced to the horrific crash, finding the walking wounded dazed and confused and other passengers still trapped inside overturned cars.
NYPD scuba divers searched the river for passengers and rescuers with cadaver dogs looked under toppled cars, fearing other survivors had been ejected.
Cuomo said all passengers and crew members had been accounted for.
“What we do know is four people lost their lives in the holiday season after Thanksgiving,” said Cuomo said from the crash site, calling on New Yorkers to pray for the injured and the loved ones of those who per.
More than 150 were aboard the train that originated in Poughkeepsie at 5:54 a.m. and was headed to Grand Central Terminal.
Many passengers, including some going home after the long holiday weekend, were asleep when they were jarred awake by screeching metal, screams and a loud bang as cars left the rails.
Survivors said the violent crash sent passengers somersaulting from their seats, some landing on top of each other.
“All the sudden the woman sitting in front of me was on my lap,” said Joseph Melendez, 44, a hotel manager from Poughkepsie. “The train was totally on its side. People were tossed all around.
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