A woman from New York is filing a serious train accident lawsuit against Amtrak, alleging various counts of negligence from the train company’s employees.

The train accident lawsuit alleges multiple human errors contributed to a devastating accident which ultimately left the claimant with permanent injuries.

Plaintiff Katherine M. opted to file this train accident lawsuit after discovering the crash could have prevented.

Overview of Train Accident Lawsuit

According to the train accident lawsuit, the crash occurred on April 3, 2016 due to failure from multiple Amtrak employees that were either impaired or distracted while on the job.

The train accident lawsuit lays out a timeline of the alleged events:

• A little after 7:00 am, an Amtrak supervisor began his shift with oxycodone, codeine and morphine in his system. During this time, another operator with cocaine in his system was working on the backhoe on railroad tracks in Chester, Pennsylvania. Before placing the massive equipment on the tracks, these Amtrak employees never confirmed that passenger trains from Philadelphia and Washington D.C. were authorized to use them that morning.
• At 7:27 am, the Amtrak day train dispatcher responsible for Train 89, the train Katherine boarded, did not determine that the backhoe was located on the tracks because he was reportedly taking a personal phone call from his wife.
• The train departed the Philadelphia train station in Pennsylvania at 7:38 am, with the locomotive engineer operating the train reportedly impaired with marijuana. This is a violation of Amtrak policy and the United States Department of Transportation regulations. In addition, the Amtrak day train dispatcher failed to identify the potential dangers from his perch.
• This is because the day dispatcher made another personal call to his wife at 7:49, and reportedly “saw something he did not like [and that] a light was on the display indicating an abnormal situation.” However, the dispatcher reportedly did not halt the train or warn the crew working the train tracks.
• Just eleven minutes after the train took off, the train’s engineer finally noticed the backhoe on the tracks and deployed the emergency breaks. However it was too late, and the train smashed into the backhoe. There was a voice over the radio stated “Emergency” multiple times, but the train dispatcher did not hear because he was still on a personal call with his wife.
• Katherine boarded the train at New York’s Penn Station and took her seat in the first car, and had no way of knowing the outstanding circumstances surrounding the train ride. The train accident occurred soon after she boarded the train, with the unattended backhoe ripping the exterior and interior of the train. Katherine’s face, spine, torso, hips, chest, and wrist were violently struck, with the force knocking her into the empty seat next to her.

Katherine says her life had been saved by a good samaritan, but also that she has suffered severe trauma and permanent disfiguring lacerations to her face.

Prior to this train accident, Katherine says Amtrak had a near identical incident on Jan. 29, 1988 dubbed the “Night Owl” accident, in which the train had smashed into equipment located in almost the exact same location in Pennsylvania. The employees were also reportedly on drugs at the time.

This Train Accident Lawsuit is Case No. 2:18-cv-01468-GAM, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.