CTA mother's scare: 'The train took my baby'
Stroller gets stuck in doors of L train at Morse, child falls to track bed
Ebere Ozonwu says it’s “miraculous” her 22-month-old daughter survived after her stroller was caught in the door of a CTA train.
A preliminary investigation showed the train’s doors were working properly, said CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney. “We don’t know the cause. We want to do more extensive testing.”
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)
The L wasn't the only danger facing the toddler who was hurtled to the track bed Monday. The 600-volt third rail lurked nearby.
* Touching the third rail and one of the other two rails stops respiratory and circulatory function.
* If a person has both feet on the third rail, he would not be injured.
* One foot on the third rail and one foot on the ground would lead to serious injury, possibly death.
* Depending on how a person is grounded and how much saline is in his urine, electrical current could flow up the urine stream if he urinates on the third rail.
But Robert Kelly, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, said “either the door malfunctioned or someone is lying.”
Kelly said he hopes a police surveillance camera will show what happened.
Ozonwu was rushing to catch a southbound train at about 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Red Line’s Morse Avenue stop in Rogers Park. She ran up the stairs to the platform while she carried a stroller with her daughter in it.
She told police she tried to board, but the train doors closed on the stroller. Ozonwu ran after the train, holding onto the stroller — and her daughter, Rachel.
But Ozonwu fell and let go of the stroller, watching as it turned sideways. Rachel’s head “bounced” on the platform, police said, and the little girl landed onto the gravel track bed about 10 feet beyond the end of the platform.
Rachel was taken to Children’s Memorial Hospital. She was released Tuesday evening.
Ozonwu, a Nigerian, is an adult caregiver who was heading home from her job, said a friend, Rose Smith. Smith baby-sat Rachel on Monday as Ozonwu worked. “She’s a very friendly, nice, cheerful little girl,” Smith said. “She just started talking recently.”
Smith said she received a panicked call from Ozonwu minutes after Ozonwu picked up Rachel. Ozonwu told her “something terrible has happened.”
Rebecca Weinberg was there for Ozonwu’s ordeal.
Weinberg and her husband Joel came to Ozonwu’s aid after hearing her scream on the platform. The Weinbergs were leaving the station when they passed Ozonwu hurrying up the stairs. They heard Ozonwu yell for someone to hold the train for her. Then they heard her scream that the train “had ‘hit’ her baby or ‘had’ her baby,” Rebecca Weinberg said.
Witnesses also told police Ozonwu said “the train took my baby.”
The Weinbergs raced up the stairs and sprinted to the end of the platform, where they saw the child on the track bed. She wasn’t near the deadly electrified “third rail,” Rebecca Weinberg said, adding, “the mother jumped on the track and handed the baby to my husband.” Rebecca Weinberg held the toddler until paramedics arrived.
“You can’t sit by when a child and her mother are in anguish,” she said.
Children’s Memorial issued a statement saying Ozonwu calls her daughter’s survival “the handiwork of God and thanks God for his miraculous intervention.”
The train and the female operator — who’s held the job since 2003 — have been taken out of service during the investigation. CTA was waiting for the operator to provide a written statement.
“The door has sensitive edges that, when pressure is applied, are supposed to open,” said Gaffney. “The procedure is that the operator is supposed to look outside the motor-cab window and make sure it’s clear. The operator also is supposed to look at signal lights for each train door [to make sure they’re closed].”
Kelly said the operator “did not see anybody caught in the doors and [got] the proper signal that the doors were closed to proceed.”
A supervisor relieved the operator at the Lawrence station, Kelly said. A northbound train operator then told the supervisor that two rear doors on the southbound train were not working, Kelly said.
The supervisor bypassed the system to allow the doors to open, Kelly said.
“Don’t tell me the doors were working perfectly fine,” he said.
Contributing: Monifa Thomas, Cheryl V. Jackson