‘I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE’
Jamie Weatherhead-Saul thought she was “going to die” as the New Jersey Transit commuter train she was riding in barrelled into the Hoboken Terminal in a fatal crash investigators said they will try to pin down what went wrong beginning today when they retrieve the engineer’s black box.
A woman standing on the platform — identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken, a former employee in the legal department of the business software company SAP in Brazil — was killed yesterday by debris and 108 others were injured in the 8:45 a.m. catastrophe.
Engineer Thomas Gallagher, 48, is cooperating with the federal National Transportation Safety Board after receiving hospital treatment, according to N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators will determine whether the explanation was equipment failure, an incapacitated engineer or something else.
Weatherhead-Saul, 31, of Wood-Ridge, N.J., credited God for saving her life. Here is her story as told to the Herald’s Dan Atkinson:
“As we approached (the station), we realized we had to brace ourselves because the train was not slowing down. There was so much speed, I don’t remember hearing any screeching sound indicative of brakes.
I thought I was going to die, for sure. In the first car crashing into the station, I thought I was going to die with everybody here and if you survived, you’d be maimed for life. There was never any moment where (I felt) I’m going to walk away.
Grown men and women were thrown like rag dolls through the train. The lights went out. Everyone was frightened and screaming. The people who fell in front of me kind of broke my fall — I couldn’t fall because people were piled up on one another. Everywhere within eyeshot I could see people were badly injured. Two women directly in front of me were hurt badly, one lady had her legs stuck in between two cars. A woman in front of me had twisted her kneecap.
I think you’re so shocked and all you see are people who need help and if you are physically able to help, you just go into action. A few of us in the vestibule helped folks stand up and get together. A gentleman who was bleeding didn’t realize he was bleeding, he was just helping the woman in front of him.
There were further yells of panic where the roof had collapsed (at the front of the car). Those in the middle of the car had to be taken out via the windows; with the debris in the aisles, they couldn’t move. Once we got off we saw the whole roof had collapsed on the train car. Workers said, ‘Please, just get back as far as you can.’
A lot of people were being carried out on the shoulders of someone else. Definitely other passengers and police officers were present, a lot of plainclothes police officers running up to the scene, conductors from other lines running over.
Everyone was panicked and crying, no one knew what happened or if there were fatalities.
I was banged up a bit, had some bruises. I went to the hospital for chest X-rays, but it was nothing compared to the folks up ahead in the car. I have an overall sense of gratefulness but also devastation because someone is not going home tonight to their family. It could’ve been way worse but someone lost their life.
I believe in a God that protects me and I think that’s exactly what happened today.”