" You can’t sit by when a child and her mother are in anguish....”On behalf of all my readers, including myself - Thank you, Joel and Rebecca Weinberg.
Rebecca Weinberg
Full story here.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Two Rogers Park Neighbors Come to the Rescue
By now we've all heard the horror story from the Morse Avenue EL last night. A mother in a hurry who puts her child in danger. Now we're hearing about the silver lining.
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19 comments:
Cheers to the Weinbergs!
wow a heartwarming story in the broken heart of rogers park, who wouldve guessed?
Why do you assume that the mother put her child in danger? Perhaps the CTA put the child in danger?
Where did you get your info?
Sorry, the more I read the story, the more it doesn't add up for me. Did these two neighbors actually see the kid, or did they just see the "woman rush(ing) past them with a baby stroller in her arms" per the Trib. No baby from the way I'm reading it. And the CTA operator didn't see a stroller after walking the train twice? And no one on the platform saw anything either? No one on a 6.30 pm train saw anything? A stroller didn't get turned in until Berwyn? Weird!
I too am baffled by this story.
L trains are supposed to be able to move unless all the doors are completely closed. There's an interlock system. There are lights next to every door to tell the motorman that all the doors are closed. I can't imagine a train moving with a partially opened door if I understood the Sun-Times story.
The mother also said she ran up the stairs. Just how do you run up the stairs with a baby in the stroller?
Someone is lying & I nominate the mother trying to scam the CTA out of a settlement.
Let's see if she hires a slimeball lawyer.
Craig, please don't slam Mom because she got frantic to catch a train that was already powering up when she tried to pry the doors. That she did something dumb does not mean she is a bad mother.
People do extremely stupid things around machinery, all the time. Most accidents are the result of at least one and usually multiple stupid, thoughtless actions on the part of one or more people. If we castigated every parent who ever did something stupid with a car or train or bicycle that endangered her kid, we'd never be done. I have seen people riding bikes in Sheridan Rd.traffic with toddlers strapped on the back in little seats. I see people with their kids on motorcycles with them. I have seen people driving two-seat sports cars with their ten-year-old standing in the crawl space behind the seats. People have been known to drive into water on flooded roads and get themselves and their kids drowned in flash floods- this happens all the time. And they run across the Metra tracks on foot to catch a train approaching the station at 50MPH-biggest cause of pedestrian fatalities on Metra tracks. People are dumb.
DON'T TRY TO GET ON THE TRAIN ONCE THE DOORS ARE CLOSED, and stand back from the thing when it starts to move! And I always see people standing much too close to the tracks while waiting for trains. Please stand outside the "safety strip" along the edge of the platform, or better yet, stand in the middle of the platform. The train coming is not going to pass you up, and if it is, standing with your toes over the edge of the platform won't help stop it if it is running express through the stop at 35MPH or faster.
Reading the breakdown, it sounds like the woman was too close to the tracks, being frantic to get the door open to the train, and that the operator was already in the motor cab and was powering up. There's no way she could see the woman, of course, because at the Morse stop, the doors open on the left while the motorcab is on the right side of the train. How many people have I seen frantically pounding on the doors of trains that are already starting to move- if the operator has closed the doors and is powering up, he does not usually see you even if the stop is to the right of the train.
This accident could have had a much worse outcome. Thankfully, there was no other train coming directly behind that one, for the Morse stop is "blind" and the operator of a train approaching the stop might not see someone standing on the right of way in time to stop, even though he'd make every effort.
Lastly, but not least, thanks to the Weinbergs for helping the woman and her baby. Hopefully, this lady will be much more careful at rail stops (and elsewhere) in the future.
How about this theory: the mother is a moron. If you have precious cargo (A BABY) why on earth would you scramble to catch an inbound train @ 6:30pm?
Not only is that irresponsible of her to jam her kid through the closing doors (if that is actually what happened), but trains run very frequently during that time. Just wait for the next one and rest assured knowing that your child's head has no possibility of being smashed all over the rails.
Do Not care how or why it happened.
Glad the baby is ok and everyone involved is seemingly ok.
I was buying my CTA pass about a two hours later and the ticket agent on duty was still very visibly shaken by the ordeal.
As someone who takes planes, trains, busses and boats with small children in tow it is easy to see how things like this can happen.
I have run those stairs carrying strollers, diaper bags and such many times before.
I get pretty nervous by the pit of death on the west side of the Morse Street entrance. Curious kids always want to look in that pit of death. Just a matter of time before something horrible happens there.
Everyone seems to be arguing that either the train driver carelessly moved forward with the doors open, or that the doors themselves were malfunctioning and crushed the stroller. I'd suggest another scenario: only one leg of the stroller was caught between the doors, which were fully closed. I've seen the doors close on umbrellas, newspapers, hands, and other things that people stick into them in an an attempt to make the train wait. Picture it: the mother has run up the stairs with the stroller (indicating to me that it's not one of those SUV-sized ones so popular in Lincoln Park, but is instead a flimsier lighter-weight model), she puts the stroller down and has to make a turn to board the train. During that turn, the doors close on one leading leg/wheel of the stroller, and that object isn't heavy or wide enough to make the automatic doors pop back open.
This fits with the description of the stroller ending up on its side, with the child bouncing along on the platform before being thrown clear and (thankfully) landing on the median instead of the third rail.
Shoving a child's stroller into a closing door (whether it's an El car, a Metra train, or even an elevator) is putting that child into harm's way, period. Although there are safety mechanisms and operational procedures meant to keep this sort of thing from happening, interlocks can be overridden, and human eyes can miss things.
That said, it's nice to hear that my old neighborhood still has some good souls living there.
How about this theory: IT'S A HOAX.
You may have received an email appeal for help in moving millions of dollars out of Nigeria. Same principle.
Bill - that seems to make sense to me - probably one of those really flimsy little strollers that fold up. All I can say is that woman should count her lucky stars. My thoughts about her will change greatly if we see her going after the CTA when it was clearly her fault.
Also, a little off topic - I was at both the Armitage stop on the brown line yesterday and the red line stop at Belmont - both are looking really nice. Too bad Joe didn't try to get the Morse, Loyola stops fixed up like those - I guess that wouldn't bring him as much press.
That woman is lucky it was a really short way down to the tracks. That whole Morse station seems like a pit of death to me, very disgusting, but what exactly are you talking about? Take a ride on the L, brown and red and get off at some of the renovated stops. I'm not sure about a market at the Morse L stop - that place will need some major cleaning before that happens.
Any RP connection to this guy?
William Wellhausen A zoning investigator for the city admitted Tuesday that for years he pocketed bribes in exchange for pushing through inspections, some of which were falsified.
William Wellhausen, 52, of Chicago, said that in 2007, he took an $8,000 bribe as a tradeoff for dummying up a phony inspection report to make it appear a residential building at 1637-39 West Granville had two pre-existing units in its basement.
Wellhausen wrote up a false report and took "creative" photos to make it look as if the units were already there, according to his plea deal.
"For that, I received an envelope of $8,000," Wellhausen told U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow.
Wellhausen's plea deal says the owners of the building -- Dumitru Curescu and Lavinia Curescu -- were willing to pay off Wellhausen for his phony work. The bribe was passed from an unnamed individual who was cooperating with the government, according to the plea agreement. The Curescus also were charged by prosecutors.
After writing up the false report, Wellhausen traveled to a gas station at the corner of Touhy and Cicero. He met with the unnamed individual, an expediter who handed him an envelope containing $8,000 in cash. In an earlier conversation caught on tape, Wellhausen can be heard talking about the plot.
"I'm giving him two extra ones that he's going to build," Wellhausen told a cooperating individual in the case. "He has nothing. I mean, I'm completely fabricating two other ones."
Wellhausen also admitted he took bribes in unrelated cases to ignore violations or to expedite permit approval. He is just the latest in a slew of inspectors and businesspeople who were caught up in Operation Crooked Code, a front by the feds to crack down on bribe-taking out of City Hall.
I've read that the Weinbergs saw the woman in question running up the stairs with a stroller. Was the child in the stroller somehow, or in her other arm? If it was a hoax, maybe she gently set the child down on the gravel before the train arrived. Whatever happened, none of the stories provided seem to add up to a realistic result.
Razldazzlr --
Those L platforms that you are talking about weren't just spruced up, they were completely rebuilt to accommodate the Brown Line expansion. Now the Brown Line runs 8 cars instead of just 6, so many of the stations had very signifant overhauls or rebuilds. And unfortunately, it's probably easier to justify spending the money for these upgrades along the Brown Line because those areas generate more income.
MS21 - sure, that makes sense. I took the brown line for a long time and liked it much better than taking the red. The brown usually people going back and forth to work instead of the loud obnoxious people on the red.
It's inconsequential whether or not mom was running and being negligent. If she was just walking and emerging from the stairs and operator didn't see her trying to board, then doors will still close. There have been times when I walked up the stairs and the last few steps, I realize that I'm actually going to make it because the train doors are still opened longer than normal or I've had a burst of energy so I go for it. However, before I do that I always look to see if the train operator is aware of me trying to make it - most of the time but not all the time.
Unknowingly, I've also gotten my backpack caught with part of it outside just as I stepped inside the crowded train. I had to yank it inside but the train was still moving. How about passengers inside coming to the aid by pulling the red handle above the doors? That opens the doors depending on how much you pull it and alerts the operator to stop.
Opening a door on the train will stop the train, period- unless the train is on one of the safety bypasses, which is done only with supervisory permission and because of a rare mechanical problem. The operator has no choice but to run the cars to see which door is open and close it.
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