By Lisa Donovan, Monifa Thomas and Art Golab
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
The first thing that ran through Kevin Dullman’s mind was dying in a subway tunnel, deep below the street.
The 32-year-old Bucktown resident had been napping on an O’Hare-bound Blue Line train leaving downtown Tuesday afternoon when he awoke to a fellow passenger cursing. He opened his eyes to find the L car — the first of eight — darkened and still. Minutes later, the train car’s doors opened, and those sausaged inside the train were greeted with thick gray smoke filling the tunnel, and now the car.
No one seemed to know where they were — or how far they were from the last stop, Clark/Lake. People grabbed on to each other, walking almost single file, onto the service ledges as the voices echoed in the vault: “Is it a bomb?” “Is this a terrorist attack?” “Is it a fire?”
“The first thing I thought of was the tunnel coming down on our heads and being buried beneath it all. The sense of claustrophobia, you just can’t imagine,” said Dullman, black soot covering a side of his face and right arm. He was standing above ground, several yards from the emergency exit at Milwaukee, Clinton and Fulton where he and hundreds of others escaped.
No foul play suspected
In all, more than 150 people were taken to hospitals after the last train car jumped the tracks and caught fire just after 5 p.m., according to CTA President Frank Kruesi.
A CTA motorman may have been the first to notice a problem. He received a warning signal on the controls and saw smoke in the tunnel, Kruesi said. He stopped the train and asked that power be cut immediately.
Dozens of emergency crews and city officials, including Mayor Daley, converged at the scene.
What caused the trouble is under investigation, but Kruesi couldn’t rule out the possibility that overheated brakes sparked the blaze. He also said it’s possible the last train car, which jumped the tracks, struck the third rail and arced — touching off a blaze in its undercarriage. The incident occurred on a shallow curve in the tracks as the train was traveling 20 to 30 mph. It’s unclear how fast it was supposed to be going.
Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline said there was no reason to suspect foul play or terrorist activity. Still, the police Bomb & Arson unit joined in the investigation.
‘There was smoke everywhere’
Nivia Marrero, 20, a graphic design student at Westwood College, was in the middle of the train when it “started shaking like crazy and it felt like it got off the tracks,” she said. “Then all of a sudden there was a spark in the back and there were flames and everybody started pushing each other and running. It was scary, really scary.
“It was like everyone was trying to hold on to each other, trying to keep calm and get out. I heard a lot of people coughing and choking. There was smoke everywhere. It was hard to breathe. People kept holding on to each other saying, ‘We’re going to make it, keep going.’ ”
Carley Olsen, 25, was in the first car. “The train was slowing down, it stopped real quick, then it kind of jerked forward and then it stopped again. After a couple of seconds the lights went off. . . . The conductor walked through, opened the doors and then walked past me toward the rear.”
Olsen and others said there was confusion at first about what to do.
Nothing came across the public address system. “There was only one guy and I think his priority was to try and find out what was wrong and to try to fix it,” Olsen said.
CTA officials praised the motorman for getting people out in an orderly fashion.
“Somebody in our car was trying to get us to go through the cars towards the end of the train, and somebody decided we would go forward,” Olsen said.
A ‘lady said she stepped on a rat’
Olsen stepped out of the door onto a platform she said was no more than 18 inches wide along the side of the tunnel. “So we just started walking down the tunnel away from the front of the train, holding onto the railing,” she said.
There were sporadic lights along the tunnel walls but some places were totally dark. Some riders used their shirts to shield their faces from the smoke.
``Some lady said she stepped on a rat and I think I stepped on it, too,” Olsen said.
After walking about 100 feet, Olsen said she saw two signs, one saying 400 feet to an exit in front, and another that said 600 feet to an exit behind. “That kind of affirmed to me that that was the quickest way to get the hell out of there.”
Then she saw a street exit sign. “One guy went in front of me and he went up the staircase,” she said.
It was a spiral staircase and so wet that they slipped several times.
“Eventually we saw the light coming down from the top of it and he ever-so-dramatically threw open the hatch and we were the first two people who got out of the tunnel,” Olsen said.
“Nobody was there. I called 9-1-1 and they didn’t know about it. . . . The first thing that came before the police was the TV helicopters.”
Rail Woes
Other CTA train mishaps:
— February 2005: A Green Line train caught fire near 47th Street. About 100 people were evacuated.
— August 2001: A rush hour Brown Line crash between two trains injured 140 people, at least 16 critically. More than 600 passengers were evacuated.
— October 1998: Six people on a Red Line train were taken to area hospitals after a car filled with smoke.
— July 1997: Nine CTA passengers were injured and 100 were evacuated when a wooden support that holds the electrified third rail caught fire.