2 killed, 21 hurt as truck slams into Red Line stop
L STATION CRASH | 'THEY ALL GOT HIT . . . EVERYBODY WAS BLEEDING'
The two women killed when a semi-tractor trailer crashed into the Cermak/Chinatown Red Line L station were identified Saturday as two South Side women.
Eloisa Guerrero, 47, and Delisia Brown, 18, died in the 5:20 p.m. Friday accident, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
(Courtesy/Chris Sweda/Sun-Times)
(Courtesy)
PHOTO GALLERY
CTA station crash
Chicago Police were still investigating the cause of the accident. The truck driver, identified as Don Wells, was in custody and has not yet been charged.
Wells has declined to take a urine test, which could identify whether he was taking drugs to stay awake.
Investigators have found no skid marks on the road, so it’s possible the driver was not braking, sources said.
The accident during Friday’s rush hour injured 21 others. The truck came rushing down a Dan Ryan Expy. exit ramp and crashed into the bus stop outside the elevated station and then into the station’s escalator.
Wells was driving for Whiteline Express Ltd., a Plymouth, Michigan-based trucking company. A company spokeswoman said the company had no comment at this time.
Witnesses Friday described a deafening screech, grinding metal and then a loud boom as the semi careened into the bus stop and “climbed the stairs” of the station’s escalator and north stairwell, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
Moments later, firefighters, police and passers-by were frantically trying to help bloody victims lying amid shattered glass or pinned beneath the crumpled wreckage of the semi. Four children were among the injured, officials said.
The 51-year-old driver of the semi, who was among the injured, was able to walk away from the wreckage and was taken to Stroger Hospital. A blood test showed no signs of alcohol, but Wells refused to give a urine sample, said Stroger spokesman Sean Howard. Against doctors’ advice, Wells refused all but a CAT scan, Howard said.
Shortly before 9 p.m., police led Wells away in handcuffs from Stroger for further questioning. Wells, his head down, refused to answer reporters’ questions.
Witnesses said the semi appeared to be traveling at least 50 mph as it barreled down the northbound Cermak exit ramp of the Dan Ryan Expy. moments before the crash.
“I saw it coming, and then I got out of the way,” said one young man, who was waiting for a CTA bus at the station when he looked up to see the semitruck hurtling down the ramp straight at him.
The truck “hit everybody else. They all got hit. When I turned around, everybody was bleeding,” said the man, who identified himself only as David.
In the wake of the accident, engineers found no structural damage to the overhead L station, but the escalator sustained “very significant damage,” said CTA President Ron Huberman. CTA officials said they briefly cut power to the Red Line between the Grand and 35th Street L stops, but no passengers were trapped in the subway and all trains were brought into stations before power was shut off.
