By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
IT was a horrible sort of Final Destination moment for Lucia Hatzivoyiatzis.
The Dandenong single mother thought she was going to die as she clung onto chairs in the carriage that crashed at the Abbotts Road level crossing in Dandenong South last Saturday week.
As she sat in the Cranbourne-bound train to visit her two daughters and her mother, she had no inkling of any danger until hearing a “massive explosion” that threw her from her seat. “It was like an out-of-control roller-coaster,” Ms Hatzivoyiatzis said.
She held on to a seat “for dear life” during the high-speed jackknife. “I remember when it was happening. I wasn’t screaming — I just hoped that if I was going to die, it wasn’t going to be painful.”
Her thoughts turned to her three-year-old daughter Elleni, who she was relieved she had decided at the last minute not to bring with her — then she thought how she wanted to hold her.
“I can’t explain the horror of it all. You can’t imagine what comes through your head.”
As the train flipped on its side, her head and shoulders slammed into the side window, which shattered, then the carriage came to rest on its side, facing backwards. With adrenalin pumping, Ms Hatzivoyiatzis burrowed out of the window underneath her to safety.
She was unaware of a nearby live wire as well as of any pain from her right shoulder, fractured during the crash. “It was like a moment out of Final Destination. I’d survived this train accident and there was no one else around. I thought everyone else was dead.”
Ms Hatzivoyiatzis has had sleepless, painful nights since being released from Frankston Hospital on the night of the crash.
She has had no prescription painkillers and no counselling since being administered with morphine in the hospital last week.
Several ‘what ifs’ have been crowding her tired imagination since — what if she had taken Elleni on the trip; what if she hadn’t missed the previous train. “I hadn’t been on a train for about a year,” Ms Hatzivoyiatzis said. “I don’t think I’ll go on another one.”
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