(The Associated Press circulated the following story on July 21.)
WELLESLEY, Mass. — The wife of a man who suffered heart attack on a commuter train and died after the conductor made two regular stops to pick up passengers plans sued the MBTA for wrongful death on Wednesday.
Passengers worked to save James Allen when he was stricken in July 2002, then paramedics tried to use a defibrillator at the Back Bay station when the train arrived 20 minutes later, but it was too late.
Lawyers for Allen’s wife, Marlene Allen, filed the suit in part because the MBTA has refused to put portable defibrillators on all 54 commuter trains, even though Allen offered to pay the $108,000 cost from any settlement she gets from the T.
”They haven’t done anything that would prohibit it from happening again,” Marlene Allen said. ”They refuse to put defibrillators on trains, even if they don’t have to buy them. It doesn’t seem as if they have accepted responsibility or valued Jim’s life at all.”
Allen’s lawyers filed a demand letter last year seeking $25 million in damages. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority offered to settle the case for about a quarter of that in May, then withdrew the offer when she accepted, Allen’s lawyers said.
Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the T, said Allen’s lawyers’ account of settlement talks were ”a complete misrepresentation,” but did not elaborate.
Allen, 61, was an internationally recognized coastal scientist who worked for the US Geological Survey in Boston. He boarded the train at the Wellesley Hills commuter rail station and lost consciousness before reaching the next stop. Passengers told investigators they were horrified when the conductor continued to pick up passengers, some of whom stepped around the unconscious Allen as they boarded.
Two medical specialists hired by Allen’s lawyers concluded that if Allen had been treated with a defibrillator within 10 to 12 minutes of his collapse he probably would have survived without any brain or neurological injuries.
The commuter rail trains have been run by the MBTA, which replaced Amtrak, since last July. A consultant hired by the MBTA after Allen’s death recommended putting defibrillators in key commuter rail and subway stations, MBTA patrol vehicles, and some boats. Pesaturo said the T would be obtaining 50 more defibrillators in September.
Pesaturo wouldn’t say why the MBTA has decided not to put defibrillators on commuter trains, but said, ”We’re deploying the defibrillators where maximum benefit is achieved.”
Allen said that if she wins her case, she and her children will use some of the money to establish a foundation that would buy defibrillators for public entities that can’t afford them.