WASHINGTON (AP) — The subway train had just pulled out from a busy Washington station when it ground to a
halt and foul-smelling smoke began filling the cars and the tunnel.
"We’re going to die here!" passengers cried.
In the fear and chaos that followed, riders prayed but also helped one another, performing mouth-to-mouth
on an unconscious woman and offering an inhaler to a man curled in a fetal position on the train’s
floor. Some waited anxiously for rescuers as instructed, while others opened the doors and broke out of
the cars on their own.
One woman died and more than 80 other people were sent to the hospital, mostly for smoke inhalation,
after an electrical malfunction Monday that left a multitude of unanswered questions a day later.
Commuters demanded to know: Was the train’s evacuation unnecessarily delayed? Were passengers given the
right information? And what caused the death of the woman?
Authorities in the nation’s capital had no immediate answers.
The woman, whose name was not released, was the first fatality on Washington’s Metro system since a 2009
crash killed eight passengers and a train operator.
The malfunction happened at L’Enfant Plaza, one of the subway’s busiest stations, around 3:30 p.m.
Monday, at the beginning of the afternoon rush hour. The stop is near the Smithsonian’s National Air and
Space Museum and many federal office buildings, including the headquarters of the National
Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation.
NTSB investigator Michael Flanigon said the smoke started when something came into contact with the
high-voltage third rail and caused an electrical arc.
The train stopped about 800 feet beyond the platform, and the arcing occurred roughly 1,000 feet beyond
the train, Flanigon said. There was no fire.
Patti Aliventi, 49, was waiting for a train when she heard shouting and saw gray smoke filling the
station. She said riders were told to get out, but a bottleneck developed when employees didn’t just
open the fare gates to make it easier for people to leave.
Aboard the train, passenger Jonathan Rogers, 31, said he and two other people tried in vain for 20
minutes to revive a middle-aged woman who had slumped to the floor unconscious near the front of the
train, where the smoke was the heaviest.
"We know you do chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth, so that’s what we did," Rogers said.
"Nothing was happening and she was laying there unconscious. Somebody took her pulse and said they
couldn’t feel a pulse."
Rogers said a man scooped the woman up in his arms and carried her through the cars toward the back of
the train.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the woman was the one who died.
Rogers said he doesn’t understand why passengers weren’t allowed to leave the train sooner for the one-
or two-minute walk back to the platform.
"It just kind of felt like, ‘Why were we trapped on that train that long?’" Rogers said.
"All we did was sit there and wait. Forty minutes seems like a long time."
Andrew Litwin, 21, a University of Texas student visiting the Washington area, said about 30 minutes into
the ordeal, a fellow rider reached 911 on a cellphone. Litwin said the news that firefighters were aware
of the problem calmed passengers, who had been yelling, "We’re going to die here!"
Luis Clemens, 47, a National Public Radio editor, said he was among a group of passengers who got off the
train and walked back to the platform through the pitch-black tunnel despite instructions to stay on
board. He said it seemed obvious, after what felt like 20 or 30 minutes, that the train wasn’t going to
move.
"We were not given any information that police or fire were en route or nearby," he said.
"All we got was, ‘Stay in place. Yes, I know there’s smoke. Don’t leave.’ And that doesn’t make a
whole lot of sense when you’re sitting there watching over some period, watching the subway cars fill up
with smoke."
The Metrorail system, which connects Washington with the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, carries an
average of 721,000 passengers each weekday. The affected line remained shut down Tuesday morning, and
other lines were on a reduced schedule.
Metro board chairman Tom Downs apologized to riders injured, frightened or inconvenienced.
The investigation "will be a thorough process that often takes time, and we understand that
passengers want answers quickly," he said in a statement. "Please know that once the cause of
this incident is understood, we are prepared to take the actions needed to prevent this from happening
again."
Smoke and fire are not unusual on the subway system, which opened in 1976 and still uses some original
rail cars. Metro’s most recent safety reports showed 86 incidents of smoke or fire in 2013 and 85
through the first eight months of 2014.
On Tuesday, Devin Krotman, a rider getting off at the L’Enfant station, said: "I don’t think there’s
a lot of trust in how Metro handled this situation."
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Dishneau reported from Hagerstown, Maryland. Associated Press writer Ben Nuckols also contributed to this
report.
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