(Newsday posted the following article by Jennifer Sinco Kelleher on its website on January 4.)
NEW YORK — From a wheelchair at the Long Island Rail Road station where Natalie Smead fell to her death, an advocate for disabled riders said Thursday that MTA and LIRR officials knew of gap dangers before the teen fell through one, but did not take the issue seriously.
Michael Harris, campaign director of the Disabled Riders Coalition, announced findings from a study his group conducted that criticizes the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the LIRR for not taking the gap issue seriously. He said he released the study Thursday at the Woodside station to commemorate the five months since Smead, 18, who was visiting from Minnesota, fell into a gap and was struck by an oncoming train.
The coalition’s study also slams the state Public Transportation Safety Board for concluding Smead’s death was the result of her intoxication. “While Ms. Smead’s actions did inadvertently place her in the path of an oncoming train, this never would have happened had she not fallen through the gap in the first place,” the study states.
MTA deferred questions to the LIRR, where spokeswoman Susan McGowan said she could not comment on the study because of pending litigation from the Smead family.
Standing next to Harris, a member of the coalition recounted how his right leg was caught in a gap at the Jamaica station last summer. Robert Schonfeld, 65, of East Meadow, said that he tripped as he was getting off the train, leaving his leg bleeding and bruised.
Each time his wife, Pearl Schonfeld, 63, rides the train, she must ask the conductor to lay a metal plate at the edge of the door so that she can wheel her walker across the gap. The study says the bridge plate is not an adequate way to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Paul Weitz, the Manhattan lawyer representing Sheila Rann, 67, a former Rockette whose plummet through a gap at the Forest Hills station in 2004 left her a quadriplegic, praised the coalition for not blaming victims for their falls.