Posted on 07/31/2002 11:43:08 AM PDT by NYer
BOSTON (AP) _ A man who suffered a heart attack on a commuter train and had to wait about 20 minutes for medical attention while the train made its regular stops has died in a hospital, authorities say.
James Allen, 61, died Tuesday in the emergency room at Boston Medical Center, where he was taken after the train stopped in Boston, said Brian Pedro, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority. Pedro said MBTA police are reviewing the emergency procedures of Amtrak, which provides crew to the commuter rail on a contractual basis. The conductor of the train has been suspended. Calls to Amtrak were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Allen was stricken Tuesday as the Framingham-to-Boston train arrived at its Auburndale stop. Although the crew was told of the emergency, passengers said the train continued on, stopping at West Newton and Newtonville before arriving at Boston's Back Bay station.
Paramedics had been dispatched to that station, where Allen got medical attention about 20 minutes after the attack apparently started. ``What I want to know is, what the hell were they thinking?'' Michael H. Mulhern, MBTA general manager, told the Boston Herald. ``This thing makes absolutely no sense to me. Somebody's potentially having a heart attack, and they're conducting business as usual?'' The three other members of the train crew _ two assistant conductors and an engineer _ acted appropriately, including one assistant conductor who performed CPR, said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo. ``It is the conductor who is ultimately responsible for the train and its operation,'' he said. ``He tells the engineer what to do.''
Passengers said Allen was unconscious and apparently not breathing as the train pulled into the Auburndale station. Pesaturo said the crew had immediately radioed for help to arrive at Back Bay station.
The train left Auburndale station at 8:52 a.m. and the crew asked commuters over the public address system if anyone had medical expertise, passengers said. When the train pulled into West Newton, passengers asked a conductor if an ambulance would be there, said Dale Boam of Natick. ``The conductor said, 'No, we have to go to Back Bay. There's not going to be anyone here _ they can't get down the stairs,''' Boam said. The train stopped again, at Newtonville, before pulling into the Back Bay station at 9:10 a.m. Once there, Allen was loaded into an ambulance and taken to Boston Medical Center. Newton Police Captain Michael Castro said that he has never heard of a problem with access at either of the Newton stations. ``The stairways are not excessively narrow,'' he said.
Mulhern said the MBTA has a clear policy for medical emergencies: stop at the next station and wait for an ambulance. ``We do it all the time,'' he said. ``I don't know what the train crew was thinking.''
AP-ES-07-31-02 1413EDT
I have used the stairs at West Newton and Newtonville many times.
There is absolutely no reason why an ambulance crew could not use these stairs.
Or better, in old-time telephone lingo: CApital 4-4444
(translation: "on my keyboard a "capital 4" is the dollare sign. Hence: $$$-$$$$)
I lived in Boston years ago and took the train to visit family in CT all the time, made other stops. There are no stairs that I know of that an EMS crew could not get in and out of pretty easily.
FMCDH
Even if the train had stopped at the next station, by the time paramedics arrived to deliver the defibrillating shocks it may have been to late. An AED on the train could have made a difference and Amtrak is also negligent for not having an AED on the train.
Plain and simple, this will/could be a sensational story....and, as we all know, the press does lie.
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