Another Deadly DC Metro Train Accident

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Greenberg & Bederman

The Washington, D.C. mass transit system is not as safe as it should be. We wish we could believe differently, but we can’t. The overall number of accidents, injuries and fatalities over the past few years is the sort of number that you would expect from a transit system in a third world country without proper safety regulations, and certainly not from the transit system of the capitol city in the United States of America.

It isn’t just the disastrous Red Line accident in July that we are referring to. The past few years the dc metro system has experienced an extensive list of injuries and deaths on both the subway and bus lines, plus several maintenance incidents which underscore how our dc metro transit system is badly in need of upgrade or repair. We have to wonder about the commitment of the people who are in charge of our dc metro transit system.

The most recent tragic event was the death of two Metro workers who were killed by a large equipment truck that was backing down the track. The two workers were not new to the job. Jeff Garrard had been working at his position for WMATA for twenty years, and Sung Duk Oh had been on the job for twelve. With that much experience on the job they had to have known what was considered safe behavior and what wasn’t. According to an article in the Washington Post, Mr. Garrard left behind a wife and daughter, both of whom have congenital heart defects, and Mr. Oh had a family as well.

What makes this metro accident even worse is that this isn’t the first time that DC metro maintenance workers have been killed on the tracks. In November of 2006, two Metro employees were killed on the Yellow Line when the driver of an empty four car train didn’t use appropriate emergency braking methods.

It isn’t just DC Metro employees whose safety is at risk. Everyday passengers are in danger as well. In January of 2007, a Green Line train jumped the tracks at the Mount Vernon Square Station. This accident fortunately only injured 18 people, but it was this metro accident that began to reveal the trend of poor maintenance standards and poor training, and not just with the rail transit. Eight days later, on February 1st of 2007, an electrical short at the Farragut North station caused a fire on the tracks which shut down Metro traffic for an hour and a half. To underscore how badly in need of repair the DC Metro system is, this fire on February 1st was actually the second fire in as many days.

Then there was a period of a month and a half where five people were struck by different busses, and four of them were killed. On January 16th a woman was hit and killed by a Metrobus in Mt. Pleasant. On February 14, Martha Schoenborn and Sally Dean McGhee had the right of way on Pennsylvania Avenue NW when they were both struck and killed by a bus that made an illegal turn at a red light.  Four days later, a woman was struck and killed by a bus on Congress Street by the Congress Heights Metro Station.  A mere six days after that, a bus hit a three year old in a stroller in Southwest D.C. Miraculously, the child was treated at a hospital and released.

There were two separate occasions where trains collided on the tracks in 2009. The first was the absolutely horrific Red Line Crash in June, where nine people died and seventy people were injured. And there was another crash in November, where two cars collided in the West Falls Church train yard, but fortunately no passengers were aboard the train. There were some minor injuries to the cleaning staff, unfortunately.

With all these latest deaths, it is obvious that our transit system is not safe.  If the Silver Spring line is extended out to Dulles Airport, we have to consider that this new project should be delayed until the major dc metro transit safety concerns that exist are sorted out. The NTSB determined that the Red Line crash was caused by a system failure. These failures need to be fixed immediately. The rash of bus fatalities in 2007 were reportedly caused by a lack of training and improper supervision. Have these issues been addressed?

Accidents like these cannot continue to be repeated. WMATA management has an obligation to make sure that the drivers are well trained and properly supervised. They also have an obligation to make sure that all of the trains and sensor equipment are working properly. But apparently they have not been doing so.

We know this not only by the NTSB report of the Red Line crash, but also from the concerns of David Garrard, one of the two workers who were killed on Tuesday:

Grace Garrard, a 49-year-old substitute teacher, said her husband was so careful when he was on the tracks that the truck that backed up and hit him "must have come out of nowhere." He had told her repeatedly in the past year that he was nervous that the aging transit system was not getting enough attention from Metro.

"We need to spend the money on upkeep, and they weren't doing that enough, and that bothered him," Grace Garrard said. "They weren't repairing the old stuff."

The offices of Greenberg and Bederman are located one half block from theSilver Spring metro station, and one mile from the Washington DC line. We are currently representing the injured in that horrific dc metro train crash that happened in June,2009.

If you or a loved one has been injured by a bus or Metro train, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free accident injurylegal consultation today.

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