(Newsday posted the following article by Jennifer Maloney on its website on March 2.)
NEW YORK — Delmy Alvarado gripped a suitcase in one hand and her 4-year-old in another as she stepped off a train at the Long Island Rail Road station in Westbury.
Then, she said, in the blink of an eye, her son plunged to the tracks.
“When I talk about it, the whole image comes to my head again and I start panicking and shaking,” Alvarado said.
Alvarado, her boyfriend and her two children were traveling from Virginia to visit her parents in Westbury Wednesday night. As they exited an eastbound train amid jostling passengers at 7:46 p.m., the boy slipped through the space between the platform and the train, she said.
“It was so quick,” she said. “My baby started screaming. I was just screaming.”
Alvarado lunged forward, intending to jump through the gap. But her boyfriend, Arcides Benites, pushed her aside, reached down and pulled out the boy, she said.
Larry Alvarado emerged with scratches and bruises.
Results of a five-month Newsday investigation, published in January, found that LIRR officials had known for more than 30 years that gaps posed a hazard to passengers, but did little more than warn people to “watch the gap” – until the death of Natalie Smead, who fell through a gap at the Woodside station last August. She was then killed by a train when she tried to cross the tracks.
Since Smead’s death, the railroad has narrowed gaps at dozens of stations and has stepped up its public information campaign, adding new signs and warnings. Newsday found nearly 900 gap incidents on the LIRR over the past 11 years.
The railroad had 106 gap incidents last year, and Larry Alvarado was the 20th person to fall through a gap this year, said LIRR spokeswoman Susan McGowan.
The gap where Larry fell – on Platform B – is between 7 1/2 and 8 inches, according to LIRR measurements taken in September. Newsday yesterday measured nearly 8 inches.
The railroad stenciled gap warnings on platforms at Westbury in December but has not made any track or platform adjustments to reduce gaps there, according to the LIRR.
The railroad’s first priority is narrowing gaps that are greater than 10 inches, LIRR Acting President Ray Kenny said.
But Delmy Alvarado said even 8 inches is too much.
“It was huge,” she said. “They should have something in there. I kiss him and hug him and thank God that he’s still with me.”