Survival a Matter of Chance

They rode the southbound train in the predawn darkness, some napping, some reading, some chatting with the friends they had made over the years.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy James Tutino, 47, boarded at the first stop, Simi Valley, before 5:20 a.m.

He needed to make it to downtown Los Angeles for an early meeting.

Tutino rode only a few times a month. He sat in the first car, with a group of fellow deputies. He told them his knee was bothering him and he didn’t want to work the clutch of his Mustang in rain-soaked traffic.

About half an hour later, Steve Toby, 51, boarded the second car at the downtown Burbank station. A stranger was sitting in his regular seat. He chose another several rows back.

Theresa Gillen, 37, boarded at the same station, en route to her job at a Los Angeles day-care center. Her mother, Eleanor, had dropped her off, as she did each day. She got on the first car of Metrolink Train No. 100.

Minutes later, there was a loud noise, and then the sound of rocks striking the undercarriage.

Some screamed. Then, as the train careened off the track and the lights went out, the passengers fell silent. The only sound was the shriek of metal against gravel.

Derailed by an empty SUV left by a despondent man, Train No. 100 was hurtling toward a sidelined freight locomotive.

For the passengers on board, survival was a matter of chance.

The impact against the Union Pacific locomotive spun the lead car sideways, and popped Scott Cox’s second-floor seat from its bolts.

Cox, 29, looked out a hole that had been ripped into the car to see the overturned yellow locomotive beside the train. Below, he saw fire. A woman’s legs dangled out of the train. Cox pulled her in, to safety.

In the darkness of the wreckage, injured passengers cried for help -- a scream that someone was pinned inside, a woman moaning that she could not move.

Cox walked with other passengers toward the back stairs.

He stepped over another woman sprawled on the floor. Then he compared his injuries to hers, and went back. Cox stayed with her until help arrived.

Still inside the train, Steve Toby had been thrown across the car.

Toby, who runs the audio for Los Angeles City Council meetings, landed on top of a woman who works for the Department of Water and Power, someone he saw regularly but had never met.

Ceiling tiles fell on them. Metal trapped his leg. They were close to where the train had jackknifed and collided with a northbound commuter train.

Toby broke free and hobbled to an exit. His usual seat was crushed and shredded. He wondered what had happened to the man who had been sitting there.

Outside, on the ground, he saw the body of a dead sheriff’s deputy.

Tutino had been killed. The veteran deputy, an avid sports fan and part-time football coach, was carried away later, draped in an American flag. He left behind a wife and four children.

“Fate, it was just fate,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Mark McCorkle, a longtime friend.

Others narrowly escaped.

Nearly every morning, Kenny Yi, 45, drove from Simi Valley to the Northridge Metrolink station, unloaded his bicycle and got on the first car. This time, the bike rack for the lead car was full. He got on the second car.

Usually, he got off at Burbank and bicycled the rest of the way to the Caltrans office downtown. But the rain persuaded him to stay aboard to Union Station.

He was napping on the second level when the sound of grinding rock woke him.

He was thrown into the aisle. When he saw the crumpled first car, he thought the overcrowded rack might have saved his life.

“Thank God. I guess someone was looking out for me,” said the Simi Valley resident. “I was thinking about all the things I could have left, like my family.”

Upstairs in the first car, Goddard Paialii, 53, of Woodland Hills had braced himself at the first loud noise. He thought that the train must be dragging whatever it had hit.

Around him, passengers were being tossed about.

One woman facing him ended up three seats away. A man seated across the aisle from him flew over and landed in a seat on the aisle.

The man, Paialii said, was unconscious. His eyes were open, but he didn’t move.

Smoke filled the car. Someone yelled fire. But people weren’t panicking.

“Everybody was trying to help everybody get out,” Paialii said. The once-orderly passenger compartment seemed “ripped out” -- laptops, seat cushions, briefcases, eyeglasses were scattered everywhere.

“We went out through the gaping hole,” he said. The damage was so severe, he couldn’t tell which side of the train was ripped open.

Someone made a step out of a piece of the broken train, to help passengers get out.

At Eleanor Gillen’s Burbank home, the phone woke her about 7:30 a.m. It was her oldest daughter, Sarah Gillen.

“Mom,” she said, “was Theresa on the train?”

“Yes,” Eleanor told her.

“Mom,” Sarah said, “the train wrecked.”

Eleanor Gillen turned on the television, saw the jackknifed train cars, the injured people. She watched as rescue workers carried victims away on stretchers.

She dialed her daughter’s cellphone. No answer. She tried again and again.

The home phone rang again, but it was a friend from Houston who had seen the news. Did she know anyone on board?

“I said, ‘My daughter was there,’ ” Gillen said. “They said, ‘We’ll pray for her.’ ”

By 10 a.m., family members had fanned out to search.

A brother-in-law went to Glendale Memorial Hospital, where a dozen of about 180 injured were treated. There was no one there with her name, officials told him.

Unable to wait any longer, Gillen found her way to a makeshift information center near the crash site by 10:30 a.m. She brought a picture of her daughter.

Glendale police officers called hospitals and described Theresa Gillen: about 5 feet 5, long black hair, brown eyes. Wearing a black fleece jacket.

Glendale Memorial officials had a Jane Doe who matched.

Police drove Eleanor Gillen to the hospital.

Her daughter had undergone emergency brain surgery for a blood clot. Her head was shaved. Her arms were bruised. Three metal plates had been placed in her skull. She was heavily sedated. But by the afternoon, her family visited her in a recovery room.

“I have a myriad of emotions going from anger to sadness, to just relief that she’s OK, to worry: What’s she going to be like when she recovers?” said her younger sister, Leah Gillen, 35. “I’m angry that someone would be so selfish and would destroy the lives of so many people. These people were just going to work.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Train wreck survivors recount close calls

Many victims of Wednesday’s train crash were commuting to work aboard the southbound Metrolink, which was pushed by a locomotive from behind. Those in the first car appeared to be at increased risk.

Car 1

David Cox, 29, of Simi Valley,

was sitting in the upper deck in the first car when the impact of the crash popped his seat from its bolts and punched a hole in the side of the car. “The lights went out and we were thrown around,” he said.

Paul Vagnozzi, 46, of West Hills, was in the lower level of the first car when “we were thrown all

over the place.” Vagnozzi, a purchasing analyst for Los Angeles County, had cuts and bruises all over his body.

Car 2

Bobby Castillo, 62, of Arleta.

A workers’ comp analyst for the city of Los Angeles. He was struck in the lower back by a table on the top level of the second car. “I thought maybe I was going to die,” he said.

Steve Toby, 51, of Shadow Hills. An audio specialist for Los Angeles City Council meetings. He was taken to Glendale Adventist Medical Center, where he was awaiting surgery to install pins in his broken leg. He was traveling in the middle car. “I’m really lucky to be alive,” he said.

Kenny Yi, 45, of Simi Valley.

He usually rides in the first car of the southbound train, but when

it arrived at the Northridge station at 5:30 a.m., the bike rack on the first car was full. So Yi got on the second car - a decision that may have saved his life,

he said.

Car 3

Karl Gove, 49, a senior systems analyst with the L.A. City Planning Department, sat in the southbound car adjacent to the locomotive. “We felt a little bump and then... boom,” Gove said. He walked off the train with a cut above one eye and a bruised leg.