Stephen Garbarino(in memorian)

STEPHEN MEMORIAL OBITUARIES





REVERE - A 5-year-old boy who wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up was struck and killed by an MBTA commuter train yesterday when he, his brother, and his mother ducked under a gate and tried to cross the tracks, witnesses and officials said.
more stories like this

Just before 2 p.m., Stephen Garbarino was on his bike waiting with the others behind a downed gate at the Oak Island Road crossing, when a Boston-bound train passed in their neighborhood just blocks from Revere Beach. They went under the gate, unaware that a northbound train on the Rockport/Newburyport line was barreling toward them, officials said.

The second train struck Stephen, who was pronounced dead at the scene. His mother was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, but did not have physical injuries, said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the MBTA. The other child was not reported injured.

The boy's grandmother, Patricia Trainor-Garbarino of Revere, said in a telephone interview last night that he was on his way to a corner store with his mother, Sherry, 37, and brother, Joey, 8, to get things for a party for the older boy.

"He woke up happy; he was just - I know everyone says this - if you took him out of a bunch of kids, he just stood out."

She described him as a preschooler at the Irene O'Connell Center who loved to ride his bike, loved animals, and was a big fan of the Scooby Doo cartoon character.

"We took him out [Saturday] night and got him a new movie and a Scooby Doo suit. It was our weekly movie night with Grandma."

Stephen said he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up, she said.

Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said Stephen was riding his bicycle when he was struck and killed.

"Evidence strongly suggests an accident, but investigators will thoroughly review all the circumstances nonetheless," Wark said in an e-mail.

The boy's family was new to the neighborhood and lived about a block from the tracks, neighbors said. No one answered the door when a reporter visited the home yesterday. The tracks bisect the neighborhood, making the crossing gates a daily part of most residents' lives.

Pesaturo, citing transit police, said it was the second death this year caused by an MBTA train.

Last year, 11 people were killed by MBTA trains, the Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis reported.

Joyce Hartman was pulling into her driveway when she heard train whistles and screams, she said yesterday, standing on her front porch on nearby Oak Island Road, the same street on which Stephen lived.

"I just got home and heard the screams," Hartman said. "I got out of the car to look and the mother was sitting there, holding him."

Hartman said being so close to the tracks is one of the major reasons she is selling her two-story home. "I hate being by these tracks. I am always in fear of this happening," she said.

Parents in the neighborhood said they warned their children about the dangers commuter trains pose as they speed through the neighborhood. Some said they have unsuccessfully petitioned the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company, the private consortium that operates the commuter rail for the MBTA, to slow trains down. Trains do blow their horns as they approach the crossing.

"I've always told my kids not to ever go near the tracks," said Ken Messina, a father of a teenager, who lives two houses from the crossing. "And if they have to pass the track, stop, and look, and wait."

Pesaturo said trains on the line travel 60 miles per hour, and faster. But speed, he said, was not an issue in this crash, and he was not aware of historical complaints about it. He said investigators have concluded that the train conductors were not at fault in this incident.

"The warning system worked as it was supposed to," Pesaturo said.

"The gates were still down."

Service on the line was suspended yesterday for about two hours after the crash.

A similar train accident in Abington killed 15-year-old Kelley Boyd in 1998. Boyd was riding her bicycle across the Pine Street crossing.

Boyd stopped for the southbound commuter train, unaware that a second train was coming in the opposite direction, toward Boston.

The second train, traveling 60 miles per hour, was probably hidden from her view.

Last night, Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino of Revere said the railroad crossing is in a densely populated residential area, but he was not aware of any malfunction of the gates or warning systems. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family," he said.

Globe correspondents Emily Canal and Sean M. Greene contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/26/revere_boy_5_killed_by_train/