“People just went flying,” said Donette Smith, 55, who was sitting in the train’s second car.

Ms. Gerzog, who was on the first car and whose arm was injured, sat in a waiting room at Brooklyn Hospital Center hours after the crash, her left arm in a sling. “I was on the bottom of the pile,” she said.

When the train came to rest, she said her car was tilted at upward angle. “We couldn’t get off because the train was all raised up by the door, up from the platform,” she said.

She said she sat inside the damaged car and waited for emergency medical workers to take her out.

Many passengers described the station filling with smoke after the crash. Most were able to walk off the train, though others were taken away in stretchers and wheelchairs. Some wore neck braces and others were bleeding, passengers said. A few limped or clutched at their arms as they tried to get their bearings after the crash.

“The impact was bad,” said Tracie Brown, 44, a passenger who was treated for neck and back injuries at Brooklyn Hospital Center. “But the worst part was the panic of not knowing what happened.”

Officials said that 106 people had been taken to hospitals, including Brooklyn Hospital Center, Kings County Hospital Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. Ms. Foster, who had an aching back, was among those treated at Brooklyn Hospital Center.

“I just thank God there were no fatalities,” she said.

Thomas F. Prendergast, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the Long Island Rail Road, said officials did not know why the train failed to stop where it was supposed to.