Entry #4 - February 4th, 2015

6 killed when train hits SUV in New York

February 7th, 2015

By: Johnny Yu

CNN News

An SUV driver who stopped at a railroad crossing north of New York caused a railroad collision that left her and five train passengers dead. An official also said that this is the deadliest crash in Metro-North Railroad history.

According to the investigation, the reason for the woman's Mercedes SUV to stop on the tracks on Tuesday night was unknown. Robert Sumwalt, a National Transportation Safety Board Member, told reporters that they will continue to look for the reason even though it is unclear at this moment.

The SUV driver was later identified as Ellen Brody, who was the mother of three girls. An MTA official who knew about the incident said the gates at crossing came down on top of her vehicle. She got out to examine the rear of her vehicle, got back in, drove forward and was struck shortly before 7 p.m. The vehicle was dragged 1,000 feet.

The victims on the train was identified later. The victims on the train were: Walter Liedtke, an European painting curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Eric Vandercar, 52 years old, a senior managing director in institutional sales and trading for Mesirow Financial; Joseph Nadol, an analyst at J.P. Morgan; Robert Dirks, who worked at D.E. Shaw Research; and Aditya Tomar, who worked at J.P. Morgan.

15 other people were injured due to the crash. After the crash, passenger Justin Kaback said he hardly felt a thing when the train smashed into the vehicle. He also said that he received no warning of the fire caused by the crash, which was about to ignite the first car of the train. It was until the people in the front of the train said they smelled gasoline, that everyone on the train started evacuate to the back.

My Thoughts & Opinions

This is a horrible disaster that happened among us. But this disaster also warned all the drivers: do not come out of the car when you cross a railway crossing. It is an extremely dangerous thing to do. You are not only putting yourself at danger, you are putting the lives of the passengers on the train in danger. I also think that the train staff should let the passengers know that there was an accident as soon as it happened. In this case, People who were not in the first car of the train had no idea about the accident. They weren't even being told of the fire until the people in the front smelled gasoline. Imagine if the people didn't smell gasoline, and the fire continued to spread towards the rest of the train, the passengers would start panicking and turning into a chaos. Overall, my opinion was that if you are driving, pay close attention; if you are a staff on the train, let the passengers know as soon as possible if there is an accident.