By Somini Sengupta of the New York Times
Two women walking along elevated Long Island Rail Road tracks near the Wantagh, N.Y., station about midnight Saturday were struck and killed by a diesel train that rounded a bend behind them at 65 miles per hour.
An LIRR spokeswoman, Susan McGowan, said Sunday that the Speonk-bound train was just west of the station platform when the engineer saw the women and hit the emergency brake, but could not stop in time.
The women, Kymberley Sprindys, 22, of Wantagh, and Maryann Khalil, 20, of Seaford, apparently never heard the train approach, McGowan said.
It is unclear why they were on the tracks. A Nassau County Police Department spokesman, Sean O'Donnell, said Sunday that the women had been squabbling with a man, Lawrence Guardino, who was also on the tracks. But the police did not offer any details of their argument.
Guardino, a 20-year-old bartender from Massapequa whom both women had dated, was unhurt, and was issued a summons for trespassing on the tracks, the police said. He could not be reached for comment Sunday.
After the accident, service was suspended on the Babylon and Montauk branches until 1:20 a.m. Roughly 50 passengers on the Speonk-bound train got off at Wantagh and were taken to their destinations by bus, McGowan said.
Dennis Brody, an LIRR engineer who was at the Wantagh station shortly after the accident, said the train had just come around the bend and was not required to sound its horn as it neared the station. He said the two women appeared to have been walking toward the station platform when they were struck.
Spryndis' uncle, Thomas Hennerty, 37, said Sunday that his niece, who lived with him, had left the house shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday to meet Khalil at the Coffee Cup, near the Wantagh station. He said Guardino had dated his niece for a couple of months and dated Khalil for more than two years.