Survivors mark 50th anniversary of Illinois Central train crash, worst such wreck in Chicago history
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It was a cloudy, fall morning, and a rush hour like any other when it happened: a catastrophic train crash just south of McCormick Place. Dozens of passengers, commuting to work and school, were killed. Hundreds of others were hurt.
Survivors of the crash want the world to remember the lives lost, and the heroism doctors and nurses showed 50 years ago this Sunday.
High school senior Lisa Klare had no reason to think anything unusual would happen when she boarded an Illinois Central train on the South Side.
"It was just a Monday routine, going to work kind of day," she said.
Just another commute downtown to do her job in a work-study program. She was joined in the first car of the train by her friends, Pat and Dean. Less than an hour later, Klare and hundreds of others would be encased in metal, amid anguished cries.
"By the time I came to consciousness — Pat and I came to consciousness about the same time — we just heard people screaming all around us, and sobbing, and it was like another world. Like, we had no idea what had happened," she said.
On the morning of Oct. 30th, 1972, one Illinois Central train overshot the 27th Street, station and then reversed. The train behind it — the train Lisa and her friends were on — came barreling down tracks, its engineer unable to stop. The collision at 7:27 a.m. was massive.
"We were basically in two trains at this point. Our car telescoped the double-decker car, and we were inside of it. So they had the work of removing all of the dead and injured from above us before they could even get to us. So it was a long haul," Klare said.
Approximately 350 people were injured, and 45 were killed. Among the dead: Lisa's friend Dean.
There was a measure of good fortune that day. Michael Reese Hospital, which is now closed, was less than 100 yards away. Scores of doctors and nurses ran to the crash site, and treated the victims right at the scene.
"They gave us injections of morphine. They ripped open our coats, and started giving us injections, and then rescues started," Klare said.
For six hours, Lisa was trapped in the wreckage, before she was airlifted to Billings Hospital at the University of Chicago, where she spent a month for multiple injuries.
A photo of her in the hospital was published in dozens of newspapers.
DePaul University transportation expert Joe Schwieterman said new safeguards put into place right after that.
"All kinds of things have changed from that. New car designs in the United States have something called a 'buff standard,' where you have a collision, and the cars essentially keep their integrity, but they derail. They may sprawl over the right of way, but you don't have one car riding up another," he said.
Add to that with GPS systems and better signaling on modern commuter trains.
Klare still has her train ticket from that day. She also has a bond with others who survived the crash, including Louise Lawarre, who thinks of four of her five children born after October 1972.
"So there's that gratitude, the joy of all the years we've had together, but always on top of that and immediately right after that is the realization of how many lives were lost — how many families mourned and grieved," Lawarre said.
Lawarre and Klare are leading efforts to organize a memorial service at the First Unitarian Church on Sunday, the 50th anniversary of the worst train crash in Chicago's history.
"The city should not forget that this happened. The city should not forget that such a tragedy can happen," Lawarre said.
"We're grateful to be able to honor the people that we lost, people we don't know, people we do know, and all the people that contributed to that day — there were so many," Klare said.
Klare went on to become a mom, and a photographer, and to work in public relations.
She said, every day since that crash, she's had pain; every day for 50 years. She's had 12 surgeries and still needs two or three more operations.
Sunday's memorial service will be at the First Unitarian Church at 5650 S. Woodlawn Av., in Hyde Park, at 3 p.m.
Lawarre and Klare would like a permanent marker placed at the crash site to remember the tragedy.
