FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com DECEMBER 5, 2013 • The Queens Courier 3 DEATH ON THE RAILS: Work to bring family of Queens train victim to the U.S. BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA [email protected] Kisook Ahn dedicated her life to helping others. It was one of the last things she did before she lost her own life, and now officials are trying to get her family here to mourn her death. The 35-year-old Woodside resident had just finished the night shift as a registered nurse the morning of December 1 when the Metro-North train she was riding in derailed in the Bronx, killing her and three others. “She always had a big, bright smile on her face, even after working 12 hours,” said Linda Mosiello, administrator at the Sunshine Children’s Home and Rehab Center where Ahn was employed. “She loved to make the kids smile no matter how sick they were,” Mosiello continued. Ahn started working at the Ossining, N.Y. nursing facility in 2010, where she provided care for medically complex children, according to Mosiello. She left the job briefly to finish classes at Lehman College where she was pursuing her masters in nursing as a nurse practitioner, said Mosiello, but had been working at Sunshine full-time since 2012. Ahn came to the U.S. from Mourn ‘true talent’ killed in car crash BY MAGGIE HAYES [email protected] Jim Sinisi’s wife said the world is “a dimmer place” now that her husband is not in it. “He was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of person,” said Susan Sinisi of her husband, a musician in the band Wordy Bums. Only two weeks shy of his 38th birthday, Jim was driving in Howard Beach on Saturday, November 30, just before 1 a.m., when James Celauro, 23, of Ozone Park, crashed into him on 159th Avenue and 98th Street. Celauro, who cops say had been drinking, is charged with vehicular manslaughter and DWAI, or driving while ability impaired, police said. Susan had gone to sleep for the night in their Glendale home and was awakened at 3:05 a.m. by a phone call from a nurse at Jamaica Hospital. “They told me Jimmy had been in a fairly significant car crash,” she said. “It was like my temperature dropped, my insides turned toxic and I couldn’t stop shaking.” Susan and her mother-in-law went to the hospital, holding hands all the way. “And I’m praying. I don’t go to church too much, but I’m praying to God that Jimmy is just physically broken,” she said. “I would wait on him hand and foot and take care of him until he was mended. I felt like so much of who is he is, is his intellect and his soul and how he writes.” Jim was with friends in Lindenwood before the crash, his wife said. “He was the essence of Queens,” said Rjae Izm, Wordy Bums drummer. Susan said her husband, a native of Woodhaven, was a “crazy, poetic, fiery, beautiful artist.” “He was just never, ever dull,” she said. “Always fun to be with, super creative and super into creating. He was brilliant.” Now, Wordy Bums, for which Susan sings back-up, wants to take on the projects that their fallen bandmate left unfinished. “Jim was the nucleus, the catalyst, the engine. The Wordy Bums can never be the same without such an integral part of this machine,” the band said in a Facebook post. “We are truly blessed to have shared the stage with him and witness true talent.” At a press briefing, the NTSB said the locomotive was traveling at approximately 82 mph as it entered a 30 mph curve, according to preliminary information from the train’s event recorders. Speed was a contributing factor in the crash, but the NTSB said it did not know at this time if the accident was due to human or equipment error. The agency said results from the crew alcohol breath tests were all negative, but results of drug tests are still pending. It also said that based on data, there was no indication that the brakes were not functioning properly on the train. The NTSB said that it has removed the Association of Commuter Rail Employees (ACRE) as “a participant in its investigation” into the derailment, citing a press conference and media interviews in which Anthony Bottalico, general chairman of ACRE “discussed and interpreted information related to the ongoing investigation.” Bottalico, according to published reports, said that the engineer, William Rockefeller, nodded off right before the derailment. A lawyer for the engineer has said he was in a hypnotic-like “daze” before he noticed something was wrong and hit the brakes, according to published reports. PHOTO COURTESY OF FACEBOOK Korea late in 2008 through a program for nurses,in conjunction with Perfect Choice Staffing. According to Mosiello, Ahn has no relatives in the U.S. Sheldon Meikle,Perfect Choice Staffing’s international director, said the Korean Consulate and the MTA are working together to help with funeral arrangements and to bring her family members to the U.S. The staff is also helping the family come to the U.S. and is in the process of putting together a fund, said Mosiello. If anyone would like to contribute, they can contact Sunshine through its website, www.sunshinechildrenshome. org. Ahn was remembered in a private service at Sunshine on Monday, December 2. “I think it comforted the staff to come together and mourn Ahn,” said Mosiello. “She was a very warm, loving woman. She was a great team player.” In addition to the four killed, of the approximately 150 people aboard, 71 people were injured when the seven-car train, coming from Poughkeepsie and heading to Grand Central Terminal, jumped the tracks near the Spuyten Duyvil station around 7:20 a.m., according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and MTA. Jim Sinisi was killed in a car crash in Howard Beach on Saturday, November 30. Photo VIA Facebook Kisook Ahn, 35, of Woodside, was one of four people killed when a Metro-North train derailed in the Bronx Sunday.
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