Train operator killed in subway fire in Manhattan
A subway train operator was killed early Friday after a fire that investigators believe may have been intentionally set erupted inside a train car at a station along the northern edge of Central Park, officials said.
The fire was reported as a No. 2 train pulled into the station and the train conductor alerted the operator that there was heavy smoke and fire in the second car of the train, said Brian McGee, a deputy chief of detectives.
When the train stopped at the station around 3:18 a.m., passengers were evacuated by the conductor, operator and another transit worker who was riding the train on his way to work.
But when emergency workers arrived on the scene the operator, Garrett Goble, was found lying on the tracks, officials said.
Officials suspect Goble, 36, was trying to flee from the burning train into the subway tunnel, when he was overcome by smoke and collapsed. He was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital early Friday morning.
Police were investigating the fire and believe it may be connected to two other fires in the transit system in Manhattan, one at the 86th Street station and another at the 96th Street station, that were also reported around 3:15 a.m. Friday.
A third fire on the street level was reported later in the morning at the 116th Street station.
“We are devastated by this; this is a hard moment for New York City Transit,” Sarah Feinberg, interim president of New York City Transit, said at a news conference Friday morning.
As the fire raged, a second subway car stopped just short of the station, after which emergency workers evacuated its passengers out of the subway tunnel through an emergency exit, Feinberg said.
A photo circulating among emergency workers of the train car shows a shell of a car with blackened walls, melted seats and loose wires hanging from overhead.
Feinberg confirmed that there was “extensive damage” in that car at a news conference.
News of the fatal incident shook the community of transit workers Friday morning and devastated Goble’s family.
“My heart is broken,” his cousin, Yolanda Strudwick, said in a phone interview.
Goble grew up in Brooklyn and spent many of his summers in Jamestown, New York, a city in the western part of the state near the Pennsylvania border, with his grandparents and a gaggle of other family members, she said.
She describes him as a “social butterfly,” who always made the people around him laugh and who would do anything for his wife and two young sons, an 11-year-old and a 5-month-old.
“He would give the shirt off his back to those he loved, even to strangers as we can see today,” Strudwick said. “For him to do this and risk his life for someone he didn’t know, that’s just the kind of person he was.”
Seventeen other people, including five firefighters, were injured, according to a spokesman for the New York City Fire Department. Four people were in critical condition after suffering from smoke inhalation, and another person was in serious condition, but the injuries were not life-threatening. The five firefighters suffered minor injuries.
More than 100 emergency personnel responded, and the fire was brought under control about 3:50 a.m. At about 6:45 a.m. firefighters were still working to extinguish the flames.
Video from outside the station shows plumes of black smoke pouring out of the sidewalk grates as the fire raged in the early morning.
It is unclear how the fire began or whether it started inside or outside the car, said Lt. Thomas Antonetti, a spokesman for the New York City Police Department.
Police say no arrests have been made, but they are investigating the incident as a criminal matter and are looking into the possibility that the fire was set intentionally.
The fatal fire comes at a particularly painful time for the transit agency: The train operator killed Friday morning was the third death among the transit authority’s front line workers in just 36 hours.
On Thursday, a 61-year-old bus operator and a 49-year old train conductor died from the coronavirus, according to transit union officials. As of Wednesday, 52 transit workers had tested positive for the virus.