Greg Toppo

USATODAY

The family of a Washington man who lay dying for four days in a Metro station after falling from a subway escalator is suing the transit system, charging that Metro video cameras captured the mishap and that personnel could have saved his life, but did nothing to help.

The man's family is seeking $25 million from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Attorney Okiemute Whiteru, 35, was leaving the downtown Judiciary Square station around midnight on Oct. 19, 2013, when he lost his balance and fell from the escalator onto a train platform, the lawsuit says. In the process of "attempting to collect himself," Whiteru fell backwards another 8 feet and out of sight of workers and passengers, resulting in what the lawsuit calls "incapacitating injuries."

The Whiteru family's attorney, Towson, Md.-based Louis Close, said the station was under "real-time video surveillance," which meant there should have been "someone physically watching the screens in real time." Metro video cameras recorded the accident, but no one helped Whiteru, who lay injured for more than four days before a passerby noticed him and alerted police, Close said. "They should have seen the incident, which was there for them to see."

Whiteru badly injured his neck in the fall, Close said, meaning that he was "not able to physically move and extricate himself from where he had fallen. But he was conscious and awake." White slowly suffocated to death from the injury, Close said.

At the time of Whiteru's death, police said he was discovered behind a low wall on the platform. His death was ruled an accident from blunt force trauma, The Washington Post reported. A Metro spokesman, Dan Stessel, said Whiteru apparently fell off the wall between a platform and the side of the station and landed under the platform level.

Stessel didn't immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed last month in federal district court.



