HOBOKEN, N.J. (AP) — At least one person is dead after a commuter train plowed into the rail station in Hoboken, New Jersey, during the morning rush hour. More than 100 others were hurt, some critically.
The New Jersey Transit train smashed through a barrier at the end of the track, coming to a halt in a covered waiting area. The wreck brought down a section of the roof onto the first car.
A passenger says the train was crowded, especially in the front cars, and plowed through the platform at the end of the line.
Radio station WFAN anchor John Minko told New York radio station WINS that the train “went right through the barriers and into the reception area.”
Bhagyesh Shah told NBC New York he saw a lot of people bleeding and a woman pinned under concrete Thursday morning at New Jersey Transit’s Hoboken station. Shah says he was in the back of the train but that many people use the front cars, since it makes for an easier exit. He says the train plowed into the platform. He says it lasted only a couple seconds, “but it felt like an eternity.”
He tells the TV station that passengers in the second car broke the emergency windows to get out.
Hospitals in New Jersey say they have received 74 patients from the Hoboken train crash.
A spokesman for Jersey City Medical Center says it got 51 injured. Three are trauma patients in serious condition, while eight others are in less serious condition. Forty others were brought in by bus, were triaged and were being treated in its cafeteria.
Officials at Hoboken University Medical Center say they received 22 patients. Three of them had broken bones, while the rest had bumps, cuts and other minor injuries.
The two hospitals are the primary places taking those injured in the crash, which killed one person. Another patient was taken to Christ Hospital in Jersey City.