DC Metro operator: Driver who died saved lives
Ben DobbinThe rookie operator of a Washington, D.C., Metro train saved lives by applying an emergency brake moments before a collision with another train killed her and eight passengers, the other train's operator said at her funeral Wednesday.
Hundreds of mourners, including family, friends and more than two dozen Metro transit colleagues, gathered in Jeanice McMillan's hometown of Buffalo to remember the 42-year-old. They remembered her as a devoted mother with a 19-year-old son in college who had struggled financially but loved the train-driving job she began in March.
McMillan was at the controls of a train that rear-ended another one stopped at a station on June 22 and landed in a crumpled heap on top.
Brian Brooks, the operator of the stopped train who suffered leg and shoulder injuries in the crash, limped to the lectern at Mount Olive Baptist Church and in a steady voice told mourners: "She saved lives." Brooks' remarks, his first public comments about the accident, drew whoops of joy and a standing ovation.
Federal investigators are looking at why a computerized system failed to halt the train and why other safeguards, including the manual emergency brake, did not work.
On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said signaling equipment designed to detect passing trains and transmit speed and stop commands periodically failed in the days before the crash. The board said the problems began after a piece of equipment was replaced five days earlier.
Evidence indicates that McMillan had tried to slow the train down. The board said the mushroom-shaped button in the operator's compartment that activates the train's emergency brake was found pushed down, and there was evidence of braking on the train's rotors.
"It's a sad occasion on one hand. It's also a time for celebration, to celebrate who many will call a hero," Jason Drayton, a pastor at the McMillan family's church, said in opening remarks at an exuberant but bittersweet two-hour service.
"It's an amazing thing when you can look in the face of danger and still have a response," he said. "She gave of herself. Not many people can do that."
Anthony Garland, recording secretary of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, said after the service that McMillan's "efforts to press the mushroom brake ... slowed the train down enough that it didn't cause more injuries and more deaths.
"She definitely did everything she could," Garland said. "She did everything she could to brake that train and she did everything she was trained to do."
McMillan, who moved to the Washington area in 1996, completed her training in December. She had previously been a bus driver.