CHICAGO — Service on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Yellow Line remains suspended today (Friday, Nov. 17) after the Thursday collision between a two-car Yellow Line train and a piece of maintenance equipment that injured 38 people, 23 of whom were sent to hospitals for treatment.
The train reportedly rear-ended a snow plow, according to a Chicago Fire Department official. Three of the injured, including the train’s operator, were said to be in serious to critical condition [see “Chicago L train hits maintenance equipment …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 16, 2023].
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are now on scene, and an NTSB briefing is expected sometime today, WMAQ-TV reports.
WBBM-TV reports the injured included seven CTA employees. The station also reports that the first lawsuit was filed within hours of the accident, by the Clifford Law Group on behalf of Cleon Hawkins, 52, who reportedly has injuries to his shoulder and leg. Hawkins’ attorneys are claiming negligence on the part of the CTA.
Dennis you are correct on numbers. I just saw an article that said there were 40+ injured.
Years ago when working in Chicago two city buses collided and residents of the nearby Rockwell Garden apartments came running to get on board the buses.
This being the CTA, 17 people were on the train and 38 of them were injured.
On November 17, 2023, Clifford Law Offices filed a second lawsuit against the Chicago Transportation Authority (CTA) in the crash of a commuter train that occurred on the Yellow Line the morning of Thursday, November 16.
Joseph T. Murphy, partner at Clifford Law Offices, filed the case on behalf of Matt Jones, 67, an architect from Skokie, who was taken by ambulance to a local hospital following the crash that injured 37 others, some critically.
Jones was sitting in the first seat of the first row in the first car when the crash occurred, and he told his lawyers that he was “bounced around like a pinball.” He suffered many injuries including head injuries that required stitches.
They should have it all figured out by now with all the people standing around with their hands in their pockets.
Amazing not one of them has moved since yesterday’s photo.
Of course, if the MOW equipment was legitimately on that track, the train should not have been. So which unit was in the wrong place?
Hope the RR got the names and IDs of all the passengers so they can identify fakes.
Rapid recovery to the injured!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Charles, you can be certain that there will be more personal injury lawsuits filed than there were actual bodies on that train. Ka-ching!
Can’t wait until even a preliminary report as to what caused this? SMH
Our society has the intellectual resources to file a lawsuit but not enough intellectual resources to keep M/W off a live track.
And why was a snow plow even out without there being snow?