Injured Widow of Man Killed on Angels Flight Goes Home

The badly injured widow of the only fatality in the Feb. 1 Angels Flight cable car accident left her Los Angeles hospital for home Thursday night and for two more months of hospitalization.

Lola Praport, 80, was wheeled in a sedated state out of County-USC Medical Center and into an ambulance for a ride to Los Angeles International Airport. She was to be accompanied by her daughter-in-law, Yaffa Praport, on the overnight flight to New Jersey.

Praport was described by family members as in serious physical condition and depressed over the loss of her husband of 54 years, Leon Praport, a Holocaust survivor.

Her granddaughter, Karen Praport, 22, said only: “She’s been better” as she waved goodbye to her through the ambulance window.

Her lawyer, Gary A. Dordick of Beverly Hills, said surgery would begin in New Jersey as soon as Praport’s doctors said she was stable.

“She has a broken right arm and broken right leg,” he said. “Her right leg has a compound fracture requiring surgery. She has a severe laceration on her forehead going across her scalp, and severe damage to ligaments in her right knee. She will require numerous skin grafts.”

Just getting permission to fly commercially across the country required the intercession of Mayor Richard Riordan’s office and airport officials, Dordick said.

But Praport was said to be eager to go home because, after skin grafts start, the same doctors will have to follow through with her care, and she didn’t want to stay so long in Los Angeles.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident, in which one of the cable cars hurtled down a steep track and collided with its twin when its controlling cable slackened while unwinding from its spool. In addition to Leon Praport’s death and his wife’s injuries, six other passengers were injured.

Documents obtained from the state Public Utilities Commission by The Times have indicated problems with inspections of the system. Also, an investigator hired by the Praport family, Bradford A. Blais, said Thursday his inquiries indicate “everybody dropped the ball on what was supposed to be the pride of L.A.”

Angels Flight is 298 feet, or barely a city block, in length. The funicular railway has been celebrated in novels and film. It originally opened on New Year’s Eve 1901.