Depending on where they live, many people have and utilize the option of traveling via train. For example, thousands of commuters in New York use the train to get to work on a regular basis. For others, the train is their work, and a dangerous place of work it can be.
A fatal train accident occurred yesterday and is an unfortunate example of why railroad workers must understand their rights. Several cars of a train derailed from the track yesterday morning, and the accident resulted in the kind of devastation that is common of railroad incidents.
CNN reports that four train passengers died as a result of the railroad accident. At least one other passenger suffered severe spinal cord injuries, though his teenage son got away from the crash barely injured. But there is more to a train accident than the passengers’ condition. What about the workers?
Reports don’t indicate many details about the employees on the train. It is apparent that none of the railway workers died in the wreck. According to news reports the conductor of the train was injured in the accident but not severely.
A train worker can sustain serious injuries in an accident like this one or even a more minor crash. They tend to suffer broken bones, back injuries and neck injuries. This recent fatal train accident makes it easy to see how a derailment can severely impact passengers’ and workers’ lives — even end their lives in the most tragic of cases.
Injured victims of train accidents have rights they can fight for, but workers who have sustained railroad injuries have special rights of their own. They should work with a personal injury attorney who has experience with FELA claims in order to best move on with their lives after an accident has changed them.
Source: CNN, “‘New York train derails; ‘gravel came flying up,’ survivor says,” Eden Pontz, Holly Yan and Catherine E. Shoichet, Dec. 2, 2013
