In spite of his injuries, NJ Transit conductor Thomas Dougan helped injured passengers to safety after his train crashed into Hoboken Terminal in 2016.

Then, expecting the worst for the engineer, Thomas Gallagher, Dougan crawled through the chaos and pried open a jammed door with his bare hands, finding his colleague unconscious but alive.

In return, the 64-year-old grandfather said, NJ Transit stopped paying him and forced him to retire early. The agency is also fighting him in court, by asserting that as a state agency, it can't be sued under a federal law that's supposed to protect injured railroad workers.

Dougan has had two shoulder replacements. The crash broke bones in his back and neck. He still receives injections for pain in his hip. Some of his fingers are still numb.

The images of passengers covered in blood, with smashed faces and broken bones, still flash through his head, no matter how hard he tries to avoid thinking about what happened on the morning of Sept. 29, 2016. The crash killed a young mother, Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, who was on the platform when Train 1614 smashed into it, collapsing part of the station's roof.

Initially, after the crash, Dougan thought he was treated pretty well. His supervisors, he said, led him to believe he would get another job, involving less physical strain, that could carry him through to retirement.

But another job never materialized. He found out it could take a year before he would receive permanent disability. In November, without explanation, NJ Transit stopped paying him, he said.

Two-and-a-half years after the crash, Dougan, of Fair Lawn, has been forced to give up the job he loved doing for more than 20 years.

"I had to retire," Dougan said. "There was no income coming in. They were playing games with me. I’m not happy about it. I wanted to continue working."

'A bloody mess'

Train 1614, from Spring Valley, New York, was crowded that September morning. The four-car train was one car short of what it would usually have.

Still, Dougan took a hard line against any passenger who attempted to stand in the vestibule. He needed that space to make train announcements and open doors at station stops. Besides, it simply wasn't a safe place for passengers.

Approaching Hoboken Terminal over a puzzle of tracks, Dougan noticed that the train was coming in faster than it should have been.

Dougan said he expected that Gallagher, the engineer, would activate the emergency brake, or "dump the air," as they call it on the railroad.

When that didn't happen, Dougan thought he would need to do it himself. But before he could react, he felt the train brake hard. A few seconds later, it crashed into the platform.

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The first thing Dougan said he remembers hearing was the sound of the locomotive. He wanted to make sure it was in idle, so that it wouldn't push the train through the building and into the Hudson River.

Then he remembers thinking about Gallagher, who was in the cab-control car at the front of the train.

"There was a bloody mess up there," Dougan said. "I had to crawl through it to get Gallagher."

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded in February 2018 that Gallagher suffered from undiagnosed severe obstructive sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder that can cause fatigue and daytime drowsiness.

The NTSB found that Gallagher wasn't screened by a company doctor for the disorder, even though he exhibited many of the risk factors.

Gallagher, who no longer works for NJ Transit, was eventually treated for sleep apnea.

Another NJ Transit conductor, Mark Mari, was also injured in the crash. Dougan said Mari underwent a seven-hour back surgery.

"Mark is still hurt," Dougan said.

Battle in court

While de Kroon was killed, Dougan was one of the more than 100 people injured, on the train and the platform.

Dougan is also one of dozens of people who sued NJ Transit over the injuries they sustained in the crash. Collectively, the lawsuits seek tens of millions of dollars in damages. The train's engineer, Gallagher, is named as a defendant in most of them.

But Dougan's case isn't like most of the others.

Dougan's lawsuit, filed last June in Superior Court in Hudson County, seeks damages under the Federal Employers Liability Act, a 1908 law intended to protect railroad workers injured on the job.

Since January, NJ Transit has been arguing in federal and state court that it enjoys "sovereign immunity" under the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and is immune to lawsuits under federal law.

After a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled in NJ Transit's favor, throwing out an $824,000 damage award for an injured maintenance worker, the agency, supported by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, has asked federal and state courts to dismiss dozens of workplace injury lawsuits.

The move has left Dougan and other injured NJ Transit railroad workers in legal limbo.

Update:Second conductor injured in Hoboken train crash sues NJ Transit

NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. Dan Bryan, a spokesman for Gov. Phil Murphy, referred questions to the Attorney General's Office, which declined to comment.

A bill is pending in the state Assembly that would waive NJ Transit's sovereign immunity. It has not received a hearing or a vote.

Dougan said that when he first started at NJ Transit, he and others were told the agency was independent of the state.

"All of a sudden after 22 years, we are a state agency," Dougan said, "and that’s your problem."

'I like the job'

Dougan said he's lost about 75 percent of the function of his arms. Two of his neck vertebrae have been fused together. He received epidural injections to relieve his back pain, but he said doctors may have to use something called "bone cement" to fix it.

"I will never be back to where I was," he said.

Going into retirement 16 months early is costing him $500 a month in income. By the time he receives his first retirement check, Dougan said, six months will have gone by without a paycheck.

Dougan said he hadn't even planned to retire.

"I like the job," he said.

Dougan used to work weekends, on purpose, he said, so he and his wife could go out and do things during the week.

"It was convenient for us," he said. "Now I can’t afford to go out."

He thought he would be able to get another job with NJ Transit within seven months.

"I thought I would get something on the railroad," he said. "I’ve had some experience."

He offered to teach safety classes. But NJ Transit said no.

"They did not like that idea," he said.

Instead, the agency asked him if he could clean.

Dougan sometimes thinks about what he could have done differently the day of the crash. He wishes he'd activated the emergency brake sooner, or helped more people.

He thinks he made his injuries worse by doing as much as he did.

In spite of his effort to help passengers and his colleague, he said, NJ Transit made no effort to recognize that, not even a pat on the back.

"I think I paid a price," Dougan said. "I don’t think they as a company recognized it."

Email: tate@northjersey.com