(The following story by Bhavna Mistry was published in the January 22 issue of the Los Angeles Daily News.)
MISSION HILLS, Calif. — Jennifer Kilpatrick, a Santa Clarita attorney active in environmental issues, is preparing for a six-month hospital stay that will include therapy to help her deal with paralysis suffered in the Metrolink derailment Jan. 6.
The most severely injured person on the train that day, Kilpatrick, 48, of Newhall suffered a crushed vertebrae and lost the use of her legs.
In a telephone interview Tuesday from her hospital bed, Kilpatrick was in good spirits as she described her injuries and her reliance now on a wheelchair. She is paralyzed from the lower chest down.
Kilpatrick, who had been representing environmentalists in their fight to save the ancient oak tree in Stevenson Ranch, is at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center.
“I’m just dealing with it on a day-to-day basis and trying to deal with it,” Kilpatrick said. “I have such little mobility. I’m just fighting to survive.”
She will remain hospitalized for the next six months while undergoing rehabilitation.
Friends who have been in contact with Kilpatrick are disheartened to see her hospitalized but glad she is thinking positively.
“She is a very strong and very assertive lady and won’t let this accident get her down,” said Lynne Plambeck, a friend and client. “This will not slow her down in the courtroom at all.”
Kilpatrick was initially hospitalized in serious condition after the Metrolink collision with a pickup truck in Burbank. The train, which derailed, was en route from Santa Clarita to Los Angeles.
“My arms work, and my shoulders work,” Kilpatrick said in hesitantly cheery voice. “I allegedly have bruises on my brain, but it works. I’m not dead.”
Kilpatrick is one of four local residents seriously injured when two of four train cars toppled after the train collided with the three-ton utility truck at a crossing.
Preliminary police reports say Jacek Wysocki, 63, of Van Nuys, a former driving instructor, drove his Ford F-350 pickup through or around the crossing gates at San Fernando Boulevard and Buena Vista Street.
The Burbank Police Department is leading the investigation, and the National Transportation Safety Board also is involved.
Kilpatrick is known for being a vocal and tenacious fighter in support of environmental causes in the Santa Clarita Valley. She has represented the interests of those monitoring water issues, the Golden Valley Ranch development and the cleanup of perchlorate in the local groundwater.
As was her morning custom, Kilpatrick was in a seat with a table in the front car on the Metrolink commuter, right behind the engineer. There she could get some work done on the way to her office.
“The first thing I saw (was that) my window broke and the glass blew in,” Kilpatrick said. “The force of the wreck pushed me downward in the table seat, and my back got caught in the table seat. The table crushed my vertebrae.”
Kilpatrick said she commuted on the Metrolink while doing her part to improve air quality and cut traffic congestion.
She sees need for change now aboard the trains. Metrolink should do away with the table chairs, install safety glass and require seat belts, she said.
There are no immediate plans to remove the tables, but that could change, said Sharon Gavin, spokeswoman for Metrolink.
“We don’t have any plans to remove the tables from our cars,” Gavin said. “That may be one of the things that Metrolink looks at in the future.”
Gavin added that the train already has safety glass.
“Our windows contain two panes of glass,” said Gavin. “The inside glass is safety glass, and that is similar to a front windshield on a (motor) vehicle. The outside glass is tempered glass designed to resist breakage from objects being thrown — like bottles and rocks.”
As for seat belts, Gavin said the Federal Railroad Administration does not require them.
“Seat belts are not required for use by trains,” Gavin said. “Trains are not designed to stop suddenly.”