(The following story by Lisa W. Foderaro appeared on the New York Times website on November 9.)
NEW YORK — As if it were not punishment enough to have an arm caught in a train toilet during the evening rush and your name splashed all over the papers the next morning.
The unlucky fellow who tried to fetch his cell phone out of a toilet on a northbound Metro-North Railroad train on Oct. 29 might have to pay for his misadventure as well.
Metro-North officials said that they were considering whether to go after the commuter for the thousands of dollars the railroad expects to spend on overtime and the toilet repair. “We will definitely look into the possibility of any sort of recompense,” said Dan Brucker, a spokesman for Metro-North. “It is standard operating practice for us to do this, given that it is taxpayers’ funds which have gone down the drain, so to speak.”
It was shortly after the 6:19 p.m. Harlem line train pulled out of Grand Central Terminal that the cell phone belonging to Edwin Gallart, 41, of the Bronx, dropped into the toilet, officials said. A railroad supervisor was unable to free Gallart’s arm, and rescue crews were summoned to meet the train at the Fordham station.
Firefighters used power tools, including the jaws of life, to slice through the toilet. Meanwhile, thousands of commuters were inconvenienced as northbound local trains were rerouted, unable to reach the other Bronx stations.
Gallart had minor cuts on his arm and was treated at the scene by emergency medical technicians, according to Brucker.
Brucker said Gallart’s ordeal would cost the railroad “multiple thousands” of dollars, particularly because an additional train and crew had to be dispatched to the line. He said he doubted that other passengers would show much forbearance.
But some Metro-North riders said that they thought the railroad was being too harsh. “They shouldn’t penalize the guy,” said Hyman Balbirer of Yonkers, as he stood on the platform at the Greystone station. “It was an accident.”
Diana Finlay, a hospital administrator waiting for a train to take her home to Fishkill, N.Y., agreed. “I think it’s pretty lousy of them to expect him to cover the cost,” she said. “Do they go after the people who are attempting suicide on the tracks when they have to stop the trains for them?”