Officials: 15 Hospitalized After Metro-North Train-SUV Crash
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Officials say 15 people were hospitalized after a Metro-North train smashed into an SUV stopped on the tracks in Valhalla, killing five train riders and the car's driver.
Twelve of those patients were sent to Westchester County Medical Center.
Doctors said at a news conference Wednesday that patients arrived with burns, broken bones, smoke inhalation and other injuries.
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They said one patient remains in critical condition, one in serious condition, four in fair condition and two in good condition. Four patients were discharged overnight.
Dr. Joseph Turkowski, the chief of burn surgery, said it was heartwarming to hear the patients' stories of how they got out of that first car of the train.
Officials: 15 Hospitalized After Metro-North Train-SUV Crash
"People carrying people out, it was actually the people on the train helping each other get out of the situation," Turkowski said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the death toll from Tuesday's crash has been revised down to six -- five people aboard the train and the driver of the SUV.
Officials had originally said seven had been killed. Cuomo did not give a reason why the number had changed.
The identities of the victims have not yet been released.
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino said the driver of the SUV was a woman while all five on board the train who were killed were men.
He said with the exception of one of the victims, all of the bodies were severely burned.
Astorino said the widow of one of the victims told him she had seen the accident on television and when her husband never called her, she suspected the worst had happened, 1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria reported.
The crowded Harlem Line train hit the SUV that was stopped on the tracks at a crossing on Commerce Street in Valhalla Tuesday evening.
Authorities said the impact was so powerful the electrified third rail came up and pierced the train. Cuomo said the SUV's gas tank apparently exploded, starting a fire that consumed the SUV and the train's first car.
Hundreds of passengers scrambled to escape the smoky wreck.
The engineer and conductor survived and investigators will be able to gather information from them, Astorino said.
The county executive said Department of Mental Health experts and professionals are helping families cope with what happened, CBS2's Andrea Grymes reported.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Railroad Administration are investigating.
The MTA said commuters should expect delays and service changes as a result of the crash.
Astorino said the train must remain on the tracks as the NTSB investigates.
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