Boston Train Crew's Actions Questioned
An assistant conductor on a train that continued to make regular stops after a passenger suffered a heart attack said it would have been dangerous to rush through stations without stopping.
Susan Bergeron said she performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on 61-year-old James Allen while the commuter train traveled for about 20 minutes to Boston. There, Allen was handed over to waiting paramedics and taken to a hospital, where he died a few hours later.
"We did what we thought was the best thing to get that man the fastest care that we could," Bergeron told CBS News. "I worked on that man from within two minutes that he stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest.
"The No. 1 priority in everybody's mind is to save that man and help him," Bergeron said in another interview. "Everybody did their part, what they did best, to try to help that man."
Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority general manager Michael Mulhern said the response of the crew members, who were provided by Amtrak, the national passenger railroad, made little sense.
"This is truly a case where questions need to be answered," he said.
The transit authority sent a letter to Amtrak to demand a quick investigation as well as background on all crew members, including training and disciplinary records.
Authority spokesman Brian Pedro said Wednesday that transit authority police were reviewing Amtrak's emergency procedures to see if there was negligence. Amtrak placed the train's conductor - the crew member ultimately responsible for the train and its operation — on administrative leave. The conductor was not identified. Bergeron was identified because she chose to speak publicly.
Allen, a coastal erosion specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, was stricken Tuesday as the Framingham-to-Boston train arrived at its Auburndale stop.
The crew was told of the emergency, but passengers said the train continued on, stopping at West Newton and Newtonville before arriving at the Back Bay station. From there, Allen was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he died.
Amtrak did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday, including comment on why an ambulance wasn't dispatched to an earlier stop instead of to Back Bay. According to a passenger, a conductor told travelers that paramedics would have had trouble with the stairs at the earlier stations.
A spokesman for CSX Transportation, which owns the tracks, said CSX would have let the train stop before Back Bay or proceed there without stopping if the conductor had asked.
"We would have done it immediately, and we would have done it without question," Bob Sullivan said. "We did what we were asked, and we were prepared to do more."
Allen's wife of 30 years, Marlene, and their two children issued a statement saying the family was "in a state of shock and grief" and felt it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.