(Newsday circulated the following article by Reid J. Epstein on October 27.)
NEW YORK — A former state senator who broke her leg in a gap fall last month filed a $1-million notice of claim yesterday against the Long Island Rail Road and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Carol Berman, 83, said she decided to pursue her suit after reading this week about legal action taken by the father of a Minnesota teenager killed in an August gap fall and a former Rockette paralyzed in a 2004 fall.
“I thought I should do the same to prop up both people,” she said, “and also to increase the pressure on the railroad and the MTA to actually fix this gap.”
LIRR spokesman Sam Zambuto said yesterday that the railroad “does not comment on matters in litigation.”
Berman’s notice of claim, filed with the MTA and LIRR, follows one filed by Peter Smead, whose daughter, Natalie Smead, 18, died in a gap fall at Woodside. He filed a $5-million notice of claim Monday. Sheila Rann, 67, who was paralyzed after falling through a gap at Forest Hills, has a $50-million suit pending.
Berman, who, according to the notice, fell through a 10-inch gap at the Lawrence station Sept. 28, said the LIRR’s public relations effort to warn riders of the gaps between platforms and trains is not enough.
“My feeling is not that they need to improve their communication,” Berman said yesterday from her Lawrence home, where she mostly uses a wheelchair since her fall. “They need to actually fix the situation so it’s not dangerous anymore.”
Berman’s Manhattan attorney, Saul Bienenfeld, reiterated a portion of the Smead notice of claim that said the LIRR and MTA have known about a gap problem for years and done nothing to fix it.
“As soon as they built these platforms 30 years ago they knew that there was a problem,” Bienenfeld said. “Then they go ahead and get these new trains, but they’re much farther away from the platform.”
The LIRR moved 2,000 feet of track closer to the station at the Shea Stadium stop in time for the baseball playoffs and began work this week at the Jamaica station. The railroad plans to move tracks at six other stations, though there are no current plans to do so at Forest Hills or Woodside.
After Berman’s accident, Newsday measured the gap at Lawrence to be as wide as 11 inches, wider than the 7- to 8-inch gap the railroad considers to be its internal standard.
Berman said the conductor of the train she fell from has called her to check on her health. “I don’t have that bitter feeling,” she said. “The train men feel terrible about these gaps and what’s happened. The corporate entity is something else.”