March 28--When Kenneth Price set out for a doctor's appointment Thursday morning, he took a bus.
One of about three dozen passengers injured Monday when a CTA train ran off the tracks and up an escalator at the O'Hare Blue Line station, Price, 60, wasn't ready to ride a train again. He's been treated for whiplash, a concussion and bumps and bruises, but it's anxiety and lack of sleep that trouble him most.
"I'm very paranoid about getting back on a train," Price said. "I can't even think straight."
Price and several other passengers still nursing wounds and dealing with newfound fears provided the clearest account yet of Monday's crash. They shared their stories even as the CTA continues repair work at the O'Hare station, which the agency said should reopen sometime this weekend.
By Thursday, the train had been removed from the station -- a process that required chopping the lead car into pieces. Work was still being done on the tracks, platforms and staircases. The agency was also looking at the escalators and the "structural integrity" of the facility to make sure it is safe, CTA spokeswoman Tammy Chase said. Damage was estimated at $6 million.
Those aboard the early morning run Monday recalled an eerily calm scene in the moments after impact. The bewildered passengers staggered off the train to find its lead car perched atop the station's escalator.
"That was unbelievable," Price said.
It was also quiet before the crash. Stanley Bonner, 64, was in the train's fourth car, reading and closing his eyes to get a few minutes of rest before the start of his 3:30 a.m. shift screening passengers at O'Hare International Airport for the federal Transportation Security Administration.
He recognized some of his fellow passengers. At that hour, the sparse ridership is usually made up of O'Hare employees going to work and homeless men and women who ride the train all night.
"It seemed that everything was going fine to me until I felt and heard the impact and the impact just sounded like the end of the world," Bonner said.
The lights on the train went out, he said. Someone yelled, "We're trapped." Another passenger got the doors open and four people aboard Bonner's car stepped onto the platform. Everyone seemed dazed, he said.
"I didn't know how bad it was until I got out and saw the train was up an escalator, and I couldn't believe it," Bonner said.
No one panicked, he said. Passengers took photos or video with their cellphones and told paramedics about their injuries once help arrived. Bonner called his supervisor to say he would be late to work.
"I didn't see blood or broken bones or (hear) anyone screaming," he said.
Bonner told paramedics he had a headache and a backache, and he was fitted with a neck brace and taken to a hospital.
Danny Diaz, also a TSA worker, was aboard the car ahead of Bonner's and had dozed off -- a regular part of his morning commute routine -- by the time the train was pulling into the O'Hare station.
He was suddenly wakened by a "bang to the head" against the glass partition to his right, he said.
"My whole body lifted up and went to the next seat," Diaz said. "I woke up. I didn't know what was going on."
The train had come to a stop. Without any time to think about what had just happened, Diaz pulled down an emergency lever above the door across from him and walked onto the platform.
"I started to shake for a little while," he recounted. "And the first thing, I just tried to find a seat and then just sat down, and tried to take all of it in."
Paramedics put a neck brace on Diaz and sent him to a hospital. Doctors told him he had suffered whiplash, he said, causing head and neck pain. He said he was still in pain three days later.
Neither Diaz nor Bonner has gone back to work since the crash.
Thursday was the first day Diaz got on a CTA train since the crash. He said he was "kind of shaky" but had to run errands downtown.
"I was panicked," he recalled of his initial train trip. "It was a little bit better coming back home. But still, it's a little bit horrible."
An investigation into the crash is ongoing, but the train operator has told investigators that she fell asleep just before the crash. The same operator also dozed while operating a train less than two months ago, investigators said.
At least two passengers have filed lawsuits against the CTA.
Bonner said he doesn't blame the train operator for the crash because he understands the difficulty of working in those early morning hours. While he works among security screeners and the passengers, the train operator was alone.
"This is one of those things that is inevitable to me," Bonner said. "The people I work with, they rest when they can, most of them are sleep-deprived most of the time, including me. We look out for each other. That driver, she was up there all alone."
The CTA on Thursday maintained that the operator in the crash had more than adequate opportunity to get proper rest before both instances in which she admitted dozing on the job.
Before starting work at 8 p.m. Sunday, the operator had been off work for 18 hours, according to the CTA and National Transportation Safety Board.
Before her shift Feb. 1, during which she also told the NTSB she had dozed off and overshot a stop, the operator had been off duty for 25 hours, the CTA said.
"This is more time off than the average 9-to-5 worker," spokeswoman Chase said.
Price said he has suffered severe headaches and been in and out of doctor's offices ever since the crash. Leaving a medical appointment Wednesday afternoon, he debated with his girlfriend, Ida Brown, whether to take a bus back to the Loop or to go with the faster route -- a train.
"I told him, it's like falling off a horse," Brown said. "You got to get back on."
A few minutes later, Price and Brown were standing on a CTA platform. Price nervously eyed a northbound train as it rolled into the station. When a southbound train pulled up shortly after, Price stepped on.
Tribune reporters Rosemary Regina Sobol, Richard Wronski, Juan Perez Jr., Stacy St. Clair and Lolly Bowean contributed.
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