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Aug 11, 2006 7:10 pm US/Eastern
LIRR Sued Over Platform Gap Injuries
by John Slattery
MINEOLA (CBS) ―
Terrence Murphy, 40, of Mineola is filing suit against the LIRR and its parent company, the MTA, for injuires he claims to have sustained last year in a fall between an LIRR train and a platform.
Murphy, who is blind from diabetic retinopathy in 1992, says he was with his guide dog September 12th of last year at the Mineola station where he attempted to step onto a train. But Murphy, who is a doctorate student at Columbia University, said he slipped on what he called "the crumbling edge of the platform," fell into the gap between the platform and the train, and was badly hurt. In his lawyer's office Friday, Murphy said, "The majority of the pain is the lower back. There's now a pinched nerve because of the fall, and numbness down my leg...I'm always in pain."
Last Saturday, 18 year old Natalie Smead of Minnesota, was getting off an LIRR train at Woodside, Queens, when she fell in a ten-inch gap between the train and the platform. She was able to crawl under the platform, but was struck and killed by a train on the other side.
The problem at the Woodside station and others is that they were built on a curve. The gap can be as much as 15 inches. A spokesman for the LIRR said there were 58 train gap incidents last year, and 59 in 2004.
Murphy's attorney, speaking to reporters in his Carle Place office, said there have been gap-related suits against the LIRR for 25 years. Attorney William Jaye said there's no way the railroad can say it didn't know. He added, "We characterize it as a travesty that could have been avoided."
While the LIRR looks for ways to correct the problem, train officials today admitted that building platforms on curves was a mistake.
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