A Dorchester resident who wound up on the outbound Red Line track with a train over her in 2019 is suing the MBTA for the injuries she suffered, charging she wouldn’t have been so seriously hurt if the train operator hadn’t come into the station so fast that he could not stop in time.
In a suit filed today in Suffolk Superior Court, Tracey Crehan of Dorchester is seeking payment and damages for the medical bills, lost wages, emotional distress and disabilities caused by the April 20, 2019 incident.
In her complaint, Crehan says she slipped on the platform and then fell onto the track, something she suggests was exacerbated by “inadequate security on the southbound Red Line track at South Station.”
Once she was on the track, train driver Paul Hutchinson “was unable to bring the train to a complete stop before the train struck plaintiff, because, upon information and belief, he was operating the train at a speed greater than reasonable at the time the train entered the station,” her complaint alleges.
Crehan says that during the incident, she suffered “multiple injuries to her ribs and spinal column, including without limitation, a fracture of her 12th thoracic vertebra, collapsed lungs, head trauma, mental health trauma and significant memory loss.”
The complaint adds:
“Upon information and belief, at the time that plaintiff was injured, defendant MBTA failed to maintain the southbound Red Line track at South Station, failed to maintain the braking system on train number 1806, and failed to maintain adequa te warning systems on the southbound Red Line track at South Station.”
This is at least the third negligence suit brought against the T this year.
In May, a woman whose leg got trapped between an Orange Line car and the platform at Massachusetts Avenue in 2018 sued over her injuries. The case is ongoing; the T claims she was more than 50% at fault for what happened and so it is not to blame.
In October, a Louisiana family up to watch a Saints/Patriots game the month before sued after they were mangled by an escalator at Back Bay that suddenly reversed direction. The family has since dropped the MBTA from the suit, but is continuing to seek damages from Kone, the company that maintained the escalator.
