Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 22, 1994 TAG: 9412220103
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Passengers left behind briefcases, purses and Christmas packages as they staggered from the smoky train about 1:30 p.m. as it sat at the Fulton Street station, one block from the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.
Off-duty Transit Police Officer Denfield Otto was heading to choir practice when the car in which he was riding exploded.
Suddenly, ``I got two people in flames, laying on the floor of the train,'' he said.
He said the blast, preceded about 15 seconds earlier by a small series of popping noises, created a wall of flames in the car.
The device appeared to be a glass jar filled with flammable liquid, with an external igniter, Police Commissioner William Bratton said. It was not clear if it went off accidentally or intentionally, he said.
The bomb, in the sixth car of the train on the Lexington Avenue line, may have exploded in a passenger's lap, Bratton said.
Police were waiting to question one injured passenger found in a Brooklyn subway station after the fire.
Edward Leary, 49, an unemployed computer operator from Scotch Plains, N.J., had both pants legs scorched off to the knee and burns on his face, knuckles and legs, police said.
When he was found, Leary told Officer Michael Ruiz he had walked to Brooklyn through a subway tunnel, Ruiz said. Leary also has an address in Brooklyn.
When asked if Leary was considered a suspect in the firebombing, police spokesman Sgt. Peter Berry said: ``If you were on the train and you got injured, would you go to Brooklyn for medical treatment? Draw your own conclusions.''
Soot-covered victims wearing oxygen masks were lying on stretchers along Broadway near the Trade Center, site of the 1993 terrorist blast that killed six.
``I thought, `Here we go again,''' said investment banker Milt Klein, who was passing by the station when the bomb went off.
Hours after the blaze, the seared car still sat on the tracks, a basketball-size burn patch on its exterior. Bits of charred clothing were scattered across the platform.
Nerlande Estimphil was Christmas shopping when she saw victims rushing out of the station. The hair, coat and face of one teen-age girl were burned.
Estimphil said the girl kept repeating, ``Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.''
He also saw a woman and a man with head burns.
Otto raced to the station's token booth and came back with a fire extinguisher.
``Some brave passengers took off their coats and tried to beat back the flames,'' he said.
Some of the victims were able to stagger up the flight of stairs to the street, while others were carried up on stretchers by rescue personnel.
The purses and other items left behind by terrified passengers were checked and no other bombs were found, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said.
Gov.-elect George Pataki issued a statement urging the death penalty for the person behind the firebombing.
Thirty-five people were treated at hospitals for burns and smoke inhalation. Four were burned critically. Six were treated at the scene, authorities said.
The Fulton Street station is the main gateway between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, with an average 50,000 people a day entering the subway at that stop. Eight subway lines run through the station.
By the evening rush hour, all but two subway lines were back in service.
by CNB