CHESTER, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The families of two children killed by an Amtrak Acela train in Chester in April have filed a lawsuit against the train carrier. Now their mothers are speaking publicly about the tragedy for the first time since it happened.
Siani Gordon and Wydeia Kimble filed a $20 million federal suit after their children, 9-year-old Jahaad Atkinson and 12-year-old Ah’yir Womack, respectively, were killed April 29. The two boys had been on train tracks taking a shortcut to the park through a hole in an Amtrak fence.
“This really impacted my life really bad,” said Gordon. She admits the past four months have been unbearably difficult. “I blame myself sometimes. I say, maybe if I wasn't at work,” she shared.
Wydeia Kimble says she doesn’t discuss the incident very much. “But I'm gonna tell you one thing. It’s very, very hard,” she said.
Tragedy has brought the two women together. “We call and check on each other,” says Kimble, who adds no one else can understand what she’s going through. “So, you know, I feel as though I can talk to her with it being, like, no judgment.”
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Their attorney Emeke Igwe cites a doctrine called the “attractive nuisance” in explaining why they believe Amtrak is culpable in their deaths.
“The example I always give is a swimming pool. If a neighbor has a swimming pool, and that neighbor knows that the nearby neighbor has little children, they have a duty to make sure that the kids do not go into the swimming pool. Why? Because kids are going to be attracted to the swimming pool,” he explained. “Train tracks are the same way.”
Igwe says Amtrak didn’t have a duty to put up a fence, but since they did, they had a duty to maintain it. What’s more, he says the fence they walked through had been in disrepair for a long time.
“When this unfortunate accident first occurred, Amtrak put out a narrative that this was just a mere trespassing event. What they failed to mention was that they erected a fence that they did not maintain,” he said.
“As tragic as this case is, there’s a larger picture that they are not maintaining these fences and therefore kids can access these train tracks.”
The next step, Igwe says, will be to review video footage of the tragedy as part of the discovery process and proceed with the lawsuit. Amtrak has not yet responded to KYW Newsradio’s requests for comment.
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