Westwood Police Chief Michael Pontillo says a 46-year-old resident owes his life to quick-thinking officers and good Samaritans after the man took a harrowing body blow from a passing commuter train April 12 at 8:15 p.m.
Investigators said the victim, walking east on Washington Avenue at Broadway, was drunk as rain fell. He reportedly ducked beneath the lowered crossing gate. Had he not stumbled he might have escaped injury. As it was, the crush of metal left him with a major pelvic injury, bleeding heavily, and knocked unconscious.
Pontillo credited Sgt. Scott McNiff and officers Joe Cottone, John Svenda, Greg Dorfman, and Samuel Ross Mann for their expert response.
A published report said Edson Zarte of Passaic witnessed the incident and tried using a belt as a tourniquet while nurse practitioner Judy Haystrand of Westwood conducted CPR as police arrived.
The report said the officers took over compressions, controlled the victim’s bleeding, and readied a defibrillator and other emergency equipment.
Pontillo reported that after about 30 thrusts the man regained consciousness. EMTs took him to Hackensack University Medical Center.
NJ Transit spokeswoman Kate Thompson told Pascack Press that the train had departed, with 50 passengers and crew aboard, from Hoboken at 7:21 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Spring Valley at 8:40.
Rail service was suspended until approximately 10 p.m. over what the rail service calls a “passenger strike.”
In July 2018, an 87-year-old borough man, George Koury, was struck and killed by a NJ Transit passenger train in Westwood during an overnight thunderstorm.
He was hit by the Pascack Valley Line train carrying a dozen or so souls at Broadway and Irvington Street just after 1:30 a.m.
— Staff report