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Wheelchair accident feeds transit users fears

By Marlene Naanes, amNewYork Staff Writer | MNaanes@am-ny.com

October 2, 2007

A woman was struck by a train and seriously injured after the back wheels of her electric wheelchair got stuck on the yellow studded area of a Penn Station subway platform, police said Monday.

The Manhattan woman, 52, who police did not identify, had just gotten off a No. 2 train Sunday evening when she turned around to see why her chair was caught, witnesses told investigators. As the train pulled away, a car struck her head and her chair hit another moving train car, catapulting her from the chair and into a column, police said.

New York City Transit officials said they heard similar witness accounts, but "heard other things" as well. "We're still investigating," said transit spokeswoman Deidre Parker.

The woman was initially listed in serious condition at Bellevue Hospital with head injuries and fractures to her face and legs.

The accident highlighted the fears of straphangers who need wheelchairs, said Disabled Riders Coalition executive director Michael Harris said.

"I myself on numerous occasions have been hit by a train and just knocked to the side a little bit. Sadly in her case it was much worse," Harris said.

Wheelchair-using commuters often prefer buses to subways, fearing their wheels may become caught in the gap between trains and platforms or that elevators will be out of service, Harris said. Not enough of 468 subway stations in the city are accessible, Harris' group says.

New York City Transit is working toward making 100 key stations wheelchair accessible by 2020. The agency plans to rehab more than that by the same deadline. Sixty-one stations are accessible already, said spokesman Charles Seaton.

Transit also began publicizing elevator and escalator outages on the MTA Web site this year. Straphangers with wheeled walkers, baby carriages and other devices polled at Penn Station yesterday say they're mindful of their wheels near a train.

Alva Rivas needs help pushing her 4-year-old daughter, who suffers from cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, over the gap at some stations.

"I'm almost 60 -- I'm scared that I'll slip in some places where it's really, really bad," said Rivas, who lives on the Upper West Side.