(The following column by Ken Rodriguez appeared on the San Antonio Express-News website on November 14.)
SAN ANTONIO — Someone dies in a Union Pacific train accident about every day and a half.
That’s about the safest thing you can say about America’s largest railroad. Nothing is deadlier on the tracks than a UP locomotive. Nothing.
We know that all too well in Bexar County. We’ve buried five people from UP accidents since late June. You know about four of the victims.
Let me tell you about one you don’t know. Robbie Whitworth died quietly on Oct. 22. He was 74. His passing escaped the notice of the county, this newspaper and Union Pacific.
Sue Thomas, Whitworth’s 44-year-old disabled daughter, composed an obituary for her newspaper in Pleasanton. But she was too grief-stricken to alert the media in Bexar County for a story that would have made more headlines. She was too angry to call Union Pacific.
Sue lives in public housing with two children. A 12-year-old son named Cody gave up his room for Whitworth, his grandpa, so Whitworth could spend his final days with family.
Sue found her father in Cody’s room at 5:02 a.m. Whitworth died three months and 22 days after a UP train derailed in Southwest Bexar County. The accident sent large plumes of chlorine gas into the air.
At the time, Whitworth was sleeping in the home of his brother-in-law, Wayne Hale, about 800 feet away. The windows were open. Chlorine gas came into the house. The gas burned Whitworth’s esophagus and the lining of his lungs. He spent the rest of his life in and out of hospitals.
On Oct. 14, I interviewed Wayne Hale and his wife, Mary, in their home near the railroad tracks. Toward the end of my visit, the phone rang. A relative was calling to say that doctors were giving Whitworth six months to live.
Eight days later, Whitworth was gone. Sue received the autopsy report recently. She didn’t understand it, so she asked doctors for an explanation.
“It was the chemicals that did it,” Sue says. “It was slowly going to kill him. There was nothing they could do about it.”
Sue says her father developed pneumonia. He struggled to breathe. He couldn’t swallow. In her father’s final days, Sue was placing liquid morphine under his tongue to numb his pain.
Sue has her own pain. A deteriorating disc in her back is one problem. Multiple hernias are another. Doctors have had to perform a colostomy. Her son Cody is severely depressed.
His grandpa had promised to take him fishing as soon as he got better. Grandpa had even given him a fishing pole. They were close. As close as a grandpa and grandson can be. Now Cody asks if he will lose his mother, too.
On June 28, Cody lost two other relatives in the toxic spill. The impact of that derailment has devastated a family.
“It makes me want to blow up Union Pacific myself, and I’m being honest,” Sue says. “I think they should be stopped, I think they should be shut down. This is happening too much. It’s like every week there is an accident with Union Pacific.”
Sue underestimates UP’s track record. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, there are more than two UP accidents each day. According to the FRA, 208 people died in UP accidents in 2003. That’s one death every 1.7 days.
UP, meanwhile, brags about its safety record. “On-the-job injuries at Union Pacific have been trending down for the past 10 years,” the company’s Web site says.
What the Web site doesn’t say is that more than 200 people have died in UP accidents every year since 1998.
No, UP is not always at fault. But UP spokeswoman Kathryn Blackwell is apologizing for the deaths in Bexar County, and says that UP is accepting responsibility.
Blackwell also says UP will give at least $1 million to the daughter of the city’s latest victim, Roger Bruening, regardless of possible litigation.
You might consider this a noble gesture if UP were giving an unconditional $1 million to the family members of other victims. It is not. UP, instead, is negotiating settlements. This is known as damage control.
The truth is there’s too much damage for Union Pacific to control. The company’s record is soaked with blood: 208 fatalities and 1,342 injuries in 2003.
No telling what the body count will be in 2004. But this much we do know: UP will boast about its safety record as one victim after another goes into the ground.