Raw footage from a security camera inside a Chicago subway station shows the moment an eight-car commuter train derailed and lauched up an escalator.
The dramatic clip, recorded inside the station at O'Hare International Airport, begins with a straphanger talking to what appears to be a person in uniform at the top of the escalators early Monday.
As the pair converse, the light from an oncoming train can be seen approaching quickly from the background.
Suddenly, the speeding train crashes into the end of the platform - where it vaulted up the escalators.
The two people standing at the top of the stairway leap out of the way as the train lunges towards them.
Kenneth Webster/AP
About 32 people suffered minor injuries when the train crashed.
Investigators suspect the operator, who has not been identified, may have dozed off before the train came barreling into the station about 3 a.m.
Evidence shows the woman, who has worked with the Chicago Transporation Authority for one year, was 'extremely tired,' the transit workers president, Bob Kelly, has said.
Although she had been off for about 17 hours before starting her overnight shift, the operator is known to work a lot of overtime, Kelly said.
I walked out and hollered. I got scared. I started shaking - I was a nervous wreck.
Two women who were hurt in the wreck filed lawsuits against the CTA on Tuesday.
'I can't use the bathroom by myself; I can't take a bath,' Niakesha Thomas, 22, told WMAQ-TV.
She said she was sitting on the third car of the train at the time of the smash-up.
'I heard a big noise. I felt my chest hit the seat in front of me, and then my back hit the seat behind me and then the lights went out,' she told the local NBC affiliate.
'I walked out and hollered. I got scared. I started shaking - I was a nervous wreck.'
She said she's had trouble walking since the accident and, even worse, has been unable to hold her 1-year-old son.
Dalila Jefferson, who works as a security guard for the airport, is also suing the agency for causing a broken foot and severe pain to her neck and back.
Jefferson, 23, was riding in the front car of the train to work 'when she was catapulted forward as the car went up the escalator,' her lawyer, Matthew T. Jenkins, told WMAQ-TV.
'She had to be extracted from the car,' he added.
Investigators were also trying to determine if an automatic braking system - which is designed to stop runaway trains from crashing into the station - was properly working at the time of the wreck.
With News Wire Services
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