Son’s tragic death inspired mom’s quest

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Nancy Doria stands near the spot where her son Jeffrey was killed by a train 20 years ago at the rail crossing at Burr Oak Ave. and Wahl Street in Blue Island. The 15-year-old was running home from school when he was struck by a train at an ungated sidewalk crossing. Mary Beth Nolan~For Sun-Times Media

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Updated: January 9, 2012 6:22PM

Twenty years after her 15-year-old son Jeffrey Hickman was killed by a freight train, Nancy Doria still wonders “what if?”

What if pedestrian gates had been installed at that crossing on 127th Street in Blue Island?

But she never questioned “what if” Jeffrey, who had Down syndrome, had not been walking — or running — home alone.

For several years after her son’s death in November 1991, Doria wrote letters and tried in vain to get pedestrian gates installed in this high-traffic area with two sets of tracks between Eisenhower High School and Memorial Park.

She’s convinced that as the Special Olympics gold medalist ran home that day the gates would have stopped him from running into that moving freight train.

Doria also is convinced that allowing Jeffrey to be as independent as possible was the best way to raise him.

“I could have been overly protective. But I tried to treat him as normal as possible. That helped Jeffrey become who he was. He grabbed life and ran with it,” she said. “He was very outgoing, comedic. He lived in the moment.”

She is now writing a book for other parents of disabled children ­— encouraging them to raise their children to be “as independent as possible,” she said.

Jeffrey was a “highly functioning” teen, and all his teachers agreed he was able to walk home by himself. Doria and her son walked the route together many times to establish a routine, and she secretly followed him to make sure he knew the route.

“When you have a child with a disability, the first thing you have to do is accept it, accept the child for who they are and love them unconditionally,” said Doria, who has since moved to Glenwood.

“I grieved twice for Jeffrey — when he was born and when he died,” she said. “He profoundly changed my life twice — by his birth and by his death.”

Jeffrey’s death has been the only fatality at either of those two rail crossings in more than 50 years, according to Illinois Commerce Commission records.

‘I just don’t get it’

Nov. 6, 1991, was a cloudy, cool fall day. Doria had been at Eisenhower High School that morning to meet with Jeffrey’s teachers and had received a very positive report. He was excited as he headed home at 2:30 p.m. and he was running. He loved to run and always ran focused — with his head down, his mother said.

He ran into a freight train moving 50 mph — it tossed him 40 feet into a ditch.

After all these years, Doria cannot believe pedestrian gates were never installed. As she marked the 20th anniversary of his death, she is thinking of taking up the cause again.

“Twenty years and still nothing. I just don’t get it,” she said. “I see pedestrian gates everywhere except there.”

ICC records show 127 at grade pedestrian crossings in Cook County, five pedestrian fatalities between 2005 and 2010, and one through July of this year at a Metra crossing in Berwyn. Over the years, ICC reports concluded that pedestrians — and drivers — often disregard warning devices. In 2011, more than 63 percent of all railroad fatalities occurred at gated crossings.

Along 127th Street, Doria said she has seen kids hop between cars or crawl under stopped freight trains. She knows there is another accident waiting to happen.

ICC spokesman Beth Bosch said railroads are not required to install pedestrian gates. Communities must request them through the ICC, and sometimes funding is available to help pay for it, she said. There are 400 pedestrian crossings in the state, but Bosch did not know how many had pedestrian gates.

Back in 1992, when Doria unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit to get pedestrian gates installed at the scene of her son’s accident, it would have cost $3,000, Doria said.

She wonders how many children have to be killed or injured before safety measures are taken.

And even though she never got the gates, Doria believes her son did not die in vain.

She told the story of Jim, a Wisconsinite who was passing through Blue Island that November afternoon on his way to Indiana when he was stopped by that freight train. He saw the commotion, and went over to the ditch where he found Jeffrey bloodied and barely conscious. According to Doria, he gathered Jeffrey in his arms and looked into his eyes.

“He had the most beautiful eyes,” she recalled Jim telling her. Jim tried CPR, and told Jeffrey he wanted to trade places with him. Then, despite the cloudy day, Jim told Doria that a “bright light” surrounded them as he held Jeffrey and he felt “tremendous heat” pass through his chest and out his back as he held Jeffrey. He wanted to accompany the paramedics to the hospital but was told he could not.

Doria stayed in contact with Jim for years after the accident, and learned that he had been contemplating suicide that day — before he met Jeffrey. He has since received counseling to deal with his issues.

It’s one of many stories Doria will detail in her yet untitled book.

“I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason,” she said. “Jeffrey could not leave this life without doing one last bit of good. I believe his soul passed through Jim that day.”