Elliot Isaac – In his own words
"The cabin went up like the Titanic"

Elliot Isaac was the Tramway employee aboard when Cabin #1 was hit last week by a construction crane.  He provided this account of the incident in a conversation with The Main Street WIRE.

"Before this happened, we had to stop the Tram many times because, although the crane had limit switches [to prevent it from hitting the Tram], a number of times they didn't have the limit switches on.  Time and time again these guys moved the crane without informing us.  We had to stop the cabin many times [because they were too close or in the way].

"We had three radios: one in the Manhattan token booth, one with the mechanics, and one with the supervisors.  The cabin attendants didn't have that frequency.  They didn't call [before the accident].

"We got hit, before we reached tower #2, from the blind side and the cabin went up like the Titanic, straight up, and everybody fell straight to the seats, to the front, on one another.  It went all the way up.  A mechanic saw it from tower three.  They said they had never seen the cabin go up that far before.  The crane hit so hard the car just went straight up and down, so quickly.

"I said, 'The damn crane!' I knew what it was right away.  I was really angry.

"We had a few passengers who were cut up pretty bad.

"Once the cabin went up just like a swing, it swung a couple of times.  We let them [the supervisor and cabin #2] know that the crane hit us.  My supervisor, Armando, hit the slow button.  I really didn't have a chance to hit the slow button myself – I was holding on – but as he slowed it down it got more stable for us.

"Once it slowed down, it got stable.  We moved slowly to pick up the mechanics, Ron Perez and Bob Kelly, on tower 3.  If they had been on tower 2 they would have been injured.  I let the ladder down, and let them through the hatch, and they came down and assisted me with the passengers.  They helped everybody on the floor.  Ron put a headband around one of the passengers.  Some passengers were back up on their feet, but I told them, if you're on the floor, just stay there.  They were in shock, some of them, and shouldn't move.

"As soon as we got to Manhattan I went to the booth and asked the booth attendant if he had heard from the crane on the radio, and he hadn't heard anything.  So as soon as I did that, I knew they were careless and didn't notify us.

"Afterward, I was really mad because it all could have been avoided if there had been a Console Operator in the booth.

"These people... I think of all of them as my neighbors.  Where I live, I leave for work at 4:00 a.m.  I never see my own neighbors.  I think of these people on Roosevelt Island as my neighbors."