Investigators have determined whether the engineer in the deadly Amtrak crash that killed eight people and injured over 200 others in Philadelphia was using his cellphone, two sources told Reuters on Tuesday. The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to release its latest findings on Wednesday morning between 9 to 10. The report says the officials wouldn't reveal their findings ahead of Wednesday's announcement.

Federal accident investigators have said Amtrak's train 188 was going 106 miles per hour just before it derailed on a curve with a 50 mph speed limit. Investigators said they were still analyzing cellphone records to determine whether engineer Brandon Bostian, 32, was using it while operating the train.

The NTSB reported last month Bostian's phone records show calls were made and text messages were sent the day of the crash but they were unable to determine at that point whether the phone was used while the train was in motion.

Bostian's lawyer, Robert Goggin, has said he kept his cellphone in a bag and used it only to call 911 afterward. Bostian, who was injured, told investigators he had no recollection of the crash, the NTSB said.

"The next thing he recalls is being thrown around, coming to, finding his bag, getting his cellphone and dialing 911," Goggin said the day after the crash.

Bostian, 32, had been an engineer on the Northeast Corridor for about three years. He was based in New York. He was specifically assigned to the Washington to New York route for several weeks before the derailment, the NTSB said.

He worked a five-day-a-week schedule — making a daily roundtrip from New York to Washington — and had a "very good working knowledge" of the territory and various speed restrictions, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said.

Bostian spoke to investigators May 15, Sumwalt said, and did not report feeling fatigued or ill while operating the train.
 

A dark-colored car slammed into a pedestrian crossing the Roosevelt Boulevard overnight then drove away.

The hit-and-run crash near Front Street in the Feltonville section of Philadelphia around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday left a man with a broken pelvis, broken leg and other trauma, said investigators.

“The impact caused the 25-year-old victim to come out of both of his shoes,” said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.

After striking the man, witnesses said the black or dark-colored Honda or Acura fled north on the Boulevard, said Scott Small.

Crews rushed the victim to Einstein Medical Center where he underwent surgery early Wednesday.

Small said no parts of the striking vehicle appeared to be left at the scene. Part of the search for the car would be to look over surveillance video to see if the driver ran a red light or had the right of way, said Small.

Don’t be alarmed if you see a lot of police in the area of a Philadelphia college Wednesday.

Temple University's main campus in North Philadelphia will be the site of an active shooter drill including police and EMS around 8:30 a.m. School officials will test their plan, policies and response actions for a shooting scenario.

Drills like this one will help school officials identify strengths and potential areas of improvement, said the school.

A tractor-trailer that was hauling apple juice overturned on a heavily-traveled New Jersey road early Wednesday morning, creating a traffic nightmare.

The tractor-trailer overturned in the northbound lanes of I-295 in Burlington Township near the exit for Mount Holly Road (Exit 47).

New Jersey State Police say the tractor-trailer and at least one other car were involved in the crash. It was not immediately known if there were any injuries.

The crash is blocking two lanes at this time. All lanes could be intermittingly closed while crews work to clear the scene.

The truck was hauling boxes of apple juice that were thrown onto the highway.

The crash remains under investigation.

An innocent bystander wound up hospitalized after an argument between other men escalated into a shooting early Wednesday.

An argument between two men at Front and Lippincott streets in North Philadelphia escalated to the point when one of the men pulled out a gun and fired, said Philadelphia Police.

A bullet struck a man standing across the street who had nothing to do with the fight, witnesses told police. The victim was taken to Temple University Hospital with a gunshot wound to his calf.

After the shooting, the gunman and his combatant ran off, said investigators.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Philadelphia Police.

The Woolwich Township municipal building is set to house a major piece of history this Wednesday.

One of the last remaining pieces of steel from the September 11 terror attacks will arrive from New York. Woolwich officials will pick it up from the New York/New Jersey Port Authority at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning launching its trek to South Jersey.

Two ceremonies will take place to commemorate the event, first at the Woolwich firehouse and then at the municipal building right after.

No official time has been given for the arrival, but city officials hope to arrive between 2 to 3 p.m. They encourage the public to line Kings Highway from the firehouse to the municipal building in support of the historic event.

Brandon Bostian, the engineer of the doomed Amtrak 188 Northeast Regional train that derailed in Philadelphia in May, killing eight people and injuring dozens more, was not using his cellphone while he manned the train, a National Transportation Safety Board report revealed Wednesday.

"Analysis of the phone records does not indicate that any calls, texts, or data usage occurred during the time the engineer was operating the train. Amtrak’s records confirm that the engineer did not access the train’s Wi-Fi system while he was operating the locomotive," an NTSB news released issued Wednesday morning read.

Bostian's phone was examined by investigators in the NTSB laboratory in Washington, D.C., the release said. Authorities said Bostian cooperated, providing them with the passcode to the cellphone to allow investigators to access the data without having to contact the phone manufacturer.

An investigation into the derailment in Philadelphia's Port Richmond neighborhood found that the New York-bound train was traveling 106 mph -- 56 mph higher than the posted speed limit -- as it entered a dangerous curve at Frankford Junction. The brakes were applied with maximum force just before the derailment, the investigation found, but the train was still moving faster than 100 mph as it veered off the tracks.

The finding that Bostian was not using his phone at the time of the derailment has heightened the mystery surrounding exactly what caused the accident.

Attorney Robert Mongeluzzi, who has filed lawsuits on behalf of some of the victims of the derailment, said the fact that Bostian was not on his cellphone "raises even more questions about why he would recklessly operate this train at an outrageously dangerous speed."

"Nothing about the NTSB’s conclusions today changes the fact that the engineer's actions were inexcusable as were the deliberate decisions of Amtrak to not implement available life-saving automatic train control systems," Mongeluzzi said in a statement.

NTSB officials said later Wednesday that being unable to determine the cause of an accident is rare, and that they anticipate the investigation will take a full year to complete.

"We still have a great deal of work to do in order to understand all of the factors that may have contributed to the accident," officials said.  "We will use all of the information that we develop in the course of the investigation to come to the probable cause of the accident."

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, whose office is conducting a separate investigation into the derailment, declined to comment on Wednesday, saying the investigation is ongoing.

"We will turn over every stone until we find out what happened," Williams said.

The crash, which turned the cars closest to the front of the train into a pile of twisted metal, killed eight people -- Derrick Griffith, 42, a dean at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York; Rachel Jacobs, 39, the CEO of Philadelphia-based company ApprenNet and a mother of a toddler; Abid Gilani, 55, who worked for Wells Fargo; Justin Zemser, 20, a Naval Academy midshipman; Jim Gaines, 48, a father and Associated Press video software architect; Bob Gildersleeve, 45, a father and vice president of Ecolab; Laura Finamore, 47, a senior account director at Cushman & Wakefield; and Giuseppe Piras, 41, a wine and oil executive from Sardinia, Italy.

More than 200 others were injured, and four remain hospitalized at Temple University Hospital. A number of lawsuits have been filed against Amtrak by injured people and their families.

After the crash, Bostian, 32, an Amtrak engineer for about three years, told investigators he had no recollection of the crash.

His attorney, Robert Goggin, has said he kept his cellphone in his bag and used it only to call 9-1-1 after the crash.

"The next thing he recalls is being thrown around, coming to, finding his bag, getting his cellphone and dialing 9-1-1," Goggin said the day after the derailment.

The NTSB's Robert Sumwalt said Bostian worked five days a week, making a daily roundtrip from New York to Washington, D.C., and that he had a "very good working knowledge" of the route and its various speed restrictions.

Sumwalt said Bostian spoke with investigators May 15 and did not report feeling tired or sick while he operated the train.

On Tuesday, the Federal Railroad Administration issued a safety advisory listing several recommendations for steps passenger rail lines should take to enhance speed control of trains. The FRA said it would enforce a Dec. 31, 2015 deadline set by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 for intercity and commuter rail lines to install positive train control, a mechanism that helps to regulate train speeds.

NTSB officials were expected to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee about train safety Wednesday afternoon. One focus of the hearing is positive train control.

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput will address the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in what is the last meeting of America’s Catholic leaders ahead of Pope Francis’ visit during the World Meeting of Families in September.

Chaput is expected to address the conference in St. Louis sometime in the afternoon. He'll give an update on the World Meeting of Families and the visit by the Holy See.

Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo said the conference is important because it's the last time the bishops will meet before the Pope addresses the group during his American visit. At that time, Pope Francis is expected to give church leaders marching orders for the direction of the American Church.

A New Jersey Transit bus rear-ended a private bus carrying more than two dozen Canadian middle-school students in the Lincoln Tunnel Wednesday, leaving 31 people with minor injuries, authorities said.

The private bus, operated by Toronto, Canada-based Denny's Bus Lines, was carrying 26 students and two staff members, including a principal, who were visiting New York this week on an eighth-grade graduation class trip, when it was bumped in the Manhattan-bound center tube around 9:30 a.m.,the Toronto District School Board said. No one on the private bus was hurt.

About 60 people were believed to be on the NJ Transit bus at the time of the accident, a spokeswoman for the company said. The 31 injured included 30 civilians and one Port Authority officer, authorities said. All of the victims were taken to local hospitals, most of them with minor bumps and bruises, and some were transported to be evaluated as a precaution.

David Gomez, who rides that NJ Transit bus every day, told NBC 4 New York he was in the middle of the bus when he saw the accident about to happen and braced himself. He said most people on the bus weren't prepared for the impact, and several people were bleeding.

Gomez had a bruised leg but was otherwise OK. He said traffic in the tunnel was stop-and-go at the time of the collision.

Afterwards, people were seen walking out of the tunnel and being carried out on stretchers as FDNY crews headed back into the tunnel with more emergency equipment.

One woman gripped two emergency responders for support as she walked out of the tunnel on the New Jersey side; she appeared wobbly on her feet and was struggling to walk in a straight line. Another woman escorted from the tunnel held a hand over her heart as she made her way to an ambulance.

Other people walked out of the tunnel on the Manhattan side, where they had to wait for ambulances. The FDNY wasn't notified to respond until 50 minutes after the accident because it was apparently on the New Jersey side of the tunnel, and the Garden State handled the initial emergency response.

It wasn't clear how long people were caught in the tube. Authorities said those stuck in the tunnel included two pregnant woman on a bus that was not involved in the accident; one of the women went into labor and was taken to a hospital, where she was expected to be OK. The other pregnant woman refused medical attention, authorities said.

The center tube was shut down for several hours and Chopper 4 showed several vehicles reversing out of the center tube as authorities diverted Manhattan-bound traffic to the south tube.

Delays of up to 90 minutes were reported at the tunnel. Traffic flowing into New Jersey appeared to be moving smoothly. Authorities said they anticipated no residual problems for the evening commute.

The Port Authority says no summonses have been issued at this point and its investigation team is continuing to work on the case. NJ Transit referred queries on the crash to the Port Authority, but said the bus operator was taken out of service pending the results of the company's investigation. 

Brian Denny, owner of Denny's Bus Lines, confirmed his company's bus was involved in the accident but had no further comment.

Retiring Philadelphia Fire Paramedic Capt. Richard Bratcher didn't expect to save a man's life on a flight from Orlando to Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon.

But when the US Airways flight crew called for someone with medical training to urgently care for a 57-year-old man who had fallen seriously ill about an hour into the flight, Bratcher said his training kicked in right away.

Bratcher, 50, who is about to retire after 25 years with the Fire Department, had just settled in when he heard the call over the plane's intercom: A passenger in coach class needed medical attention immediately.

Bratcher hadn't practiced as a paramedic for several years since he became a supervisor. But as soon as he got to the sick man's seat and saw him, he said, his training and decades of experience took over.

"All you had to do was look at this man and know he was very sick. He was gray. His lips were blue," Bratcher recounted Wednesday. "He was still conscious, so I kind of just put the flight crew to work. I said get me some oxygen, get some aspirin, get me some water."

Bratcher gave his fellow passenger two aspirins to chew, had him drink some water and kept him on oxygen the whole time, the paramedic captain said.

"Then probably within 15 minutes of chewing the aspirin and oxygen, his color came back into his face," Bratcher said. "By the time we landed in Philly, we were laughing and joking with each other. It was an experience. It was really an experience."

Bratcher said he told the flight attendants to tell the pilot to "punch it up" and fly faster to get to Philly. The flight, which would normally be about two-and-a-half hours long, landed at Philadelphia International Airport 45 minutes early. Bratcher, who is originally from Florida, was returning from visiting his home state to make settlement on his retirement home, he said.

Firefighters and medics from Engine 78 and Medic 30 met the plane on the tarmac and took the man to the hospital. Bratcher said on Wednesday, as he packed up his Queen Village house for his move to Florida, that he hopes the man, whose name escaped him, is doing well.

"I hope he's doing very well," Bratcher said. "Honestly, when the chips are down, you don't remember names. When you do what I've been doing for 30 years, you just go into this automatic mode of, 'Let me make this person better.'"

Fire Department Deputy Commissioner for EMS Jeremiah Laster praised Bratcher's quick thinking.

"He did a great job and we're proud of him," Laster said. "There's no greater feeling than to know you made a positive impact on somebody's life."

Laster said despite the challenges of stabilizing someone mid-air, Bratcher was able to fall back on his experience to help the fellow passenger.

"The bottom line is, one of the best skills of a paramedic with Capt. Bratcher's experience would be being able to look at a person and recognize they're in dire straits," Laster said. "He utilized those skills, making sure the person on the plane got 100 percent oxygen, and was able to secure aspirin to help the patient recover."

Others on the flight gave Bratcher accolades, too, for springing into action and saving the man's life, Bratcher said -- but he doesn't believe it was a big deal.

"When I got to baggage claim, all these young kids — I'm 50 years old, so I call them young kids, but they were in their 20s and 30s — they were like, 'Dude, you were amazing,'" Bratcher said. "I'm like, 'I'm not amazing. I didn't do anything. I just did what I do.'"

A brave shark tank cleaner at an aquarium in the South Pacific gave a leopard shark a hug and a belly scratch in a striking video posted to social media.

While cleaning the tank, the aquarium-keeper in New Caledonia, a French island territory, noticed that the shark was approaching him, so he pulled it in and gave it a hug.

The shark seemed to like the affection; it rolled onto its belly for a rub before swimming off. An aquarium representative said the shark frequently snuggles up with its keepers. 

A man accused of shooting at police officers may be connected to a series of suspicious fires on a Chester street.

The unidentified suspect allegedly opened fire at Chester Police officers on the 400 block of Bickley Place Friday. He was arrested and taken into custody Wednesday.

Police are investigating whether the suspect was involved in several suspicious fires on the 400 block of Bickley Place. Fires started on the street May 30, June 1 and June 2 leading to suspicions from both police and neighbors that they were intentionally set.

While police are investigating whether the alleged gunman was involved he has not been named a suspect in the suspicious fires.

Tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians crave daily injections of heroin. Beyond the threat of overdose is the threat of being exposed to HIV and hepatitis C, both deadly and expensive illnesses that are easily spread through contaminated needles.

But in Pennsylvania, distributing sterile syringes is a criminal act.

For years, Dianna Pagan feared that giving out clean syringes in Reading would land her in jail. Officials there recently agreed to let her needle exchange operate, though she’s faced numerous setbacks for more than a decade, including being shut down following the threat of prosecution.

“There’s no protection,” said Pagan, who contracted HIV while using drugs at age 19. In an effort to help others, she started distributing clean needles more than 15 years ago through Reading Risk Reduction.

Only in Allegheny County and Philadelphia have local leaders publicly supported needle exchanges, essentially ignoring state law out of concern for public health.

Elsewhere, identical efforts expose volunteers to legal hassles and, in the worst case, jail, if police and prosecutors decide they’re violating the state’s drug paraphernalia law.

“We have laws on the books that are causing needless illness and death,” said Caroline Acker, who helped start Prevention Point Pittsburgh in 1995, back before local officials gave it protection.

Most of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states have explicitly authorized at least some needle exchanges, as have other states hit with an injection drug crisis.

Most notably, Indiana lawmakers passed a needle exchange bill after Gov. Mike Pence — previously an opponent to needle exchanges  — authorized a short-term exchange following a sudden and troubling spike in HIV cases.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has seen an increase in heroin use and in acute hepatitis C, though the state’s health and drug treatment agencies say they lack the authority to fund or implement exchanges.

Reducing Harm

Needle exchanges in Pennsylvania are nothing new.

In the midst of an HIV crisis in the early 1990s, volunteers in Philadelphia began passing out clean syringes, targeting a high-risk population at a time when injection drug use was tied to nearly half of all local HIV cases.

Exchanges operate under the assumption that drug use won’t stop just because clean needles aren’t available.

In 1992, then-Mayor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, declared a public health emergency, putting the weight of his office behind Prevention Point Philadelphia, the state’s longest-running syringe exchange.

The state threatened a crackdown, but none came.

Now only about 5 percent of new HIV cases in Philadelphia are spread through syringes, according to the city’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office.

“People are telling each other, ‘You need to keep yourself safe,’” Jose Benitez, Prevention Point Philadelphia’s executive director, told PublicSource, explaining how drug users embraced the program.

Allegheny County soon followed.

In 1995, volunteers from the unaffiliated Prevention Point Pittsburgh set up card tables to distribute clean syringes and safely dispose of used ones.

Early on, workers faced the threat of arrest and pressure from unhappy neighbors to move elsewhere.

But the county health department eventually embraced the program, giving it regular space to distribute and collect needles. It was authorized by the Allegheny County Council in 2008.

Richard Smith, HIV/AIDS project director for the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, said few new HIV cases in the Pittsburgh area are tied to injection drug use. The foundation was one of Prevention Point Pittsburgh’s first supporters. JHF also provides funding support to PublicSource.

So, the state’s two largest cities accept needle exchanges as effective interventions. But Pennsylvania’s heroin crisis affects small cities and rural areas as well. And when needles are shared, outbreaks of HIV and hepatitis C can follow.

Underground exchanges are operating in Lancaster and Harrisburg, both with implied support from local officials, as well as in Reading.

Scott Burris, professor of law at Temple University, says the flare-up of HIV in the state of Indiana should serve as a cautionary tale.

More than 140 people tested positive for HIV in the state’s Scott County, which has about 24,000 residents and an injection drug problem. Indiana’s governor opposed needle exchanges in the past but signed a bill to authorize exchanges during health emergencies.

“That should be a warning for every small Pennsylvania city and town,” said Burris, who has studied needle exchange and drug paraphernalia laws nationwide.

In rural areas, Burris said, drug users are part of a close-knit community. They tend to know each other, and they tend to inject together.

That means if one person has a bloodborne disease, it can spread quickly to anyone sharing the same needle. HIV and hepatitis C can spread to non-drug users through other means, including sexual contact.

Both HIV and hepatitis C can be deadly and are extremely expensive to treat. Hepatitis C can be even easier to contract than HIV, meaning a new syringe isn’t always enough to stop transmission because other paraphernalia may be contaminated, said Acker, a public health historian and head of the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University.

Nationwide, acute cases of hepatitis C spiked 75 percent from 2010 to 2012, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributes mostly to drug use by young, white people in non-urban areas.

In Pennsylvania — which has a drug problem that includes that exact demographic — acute cases of hepatitis C more than doubled over the same period. The state has not pinpointed a cause for the increase.

Both the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs say they want to prevent the spread of bloodborne diseases. But they also lack the authority to implement or invest resources in needle exchanges.

“We are looking at actions that other states are taking to address mitigating the spread of HIV and hepatitis,” Amy Worden, communications director for the Department of Health, said in an emailed statement on behalf of both agencies.

The Federal Paradox

Renee Cox, executive director of Prevention Point Pittsburgh, said funding is a major hurdle.

Pennsylvania gives no money to exchanges, and Congress in December 2011 reinstituted a decades-old federal ban on funding exchanges. This means programs are dependent on limited private grant money and local support.

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), who currently sits on the congressional subcommittee that oversees HIV-related spending, explains why he’d like the ban to continue.

To him, harm reduction means interdicting drugs and getting users to treatment. It doesn’t mean supporting exchanges.

“It does not make sense for the federal government to hold the use of heroin to be illegal while at the same time funding the distribution of the paraphernalia required to use the drug,” Dent said in an emailed statement.

Exchange opponents argue that the programs encourage drug use, saying in essence that fewer people would inject heroin if fewer sterile syringes were available.

The federal funding ban was lifted briefly in 2009, with support from the Obama administration and AIDS activists.

After two years, however, the ban was reinstated, despite the CDC’s embrace of needle exchanges as an effective intervention to control bloodborne diseases.

The research on bloodborne diseases has existed for many years and is backed by public health experts across the country, including those in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

In 2009, the state’s Board of Pharmacy made syringes available without a prescription, a move that signals support for increased access despite state law.

Barriers remain because pharmacists are empowered to decide if they want to sell syringes to customers they suspect of using drugs. Carrying a syringe for illicit drug use is still illegal.

The state has previously said its funding ban keeps it in line with the federal government.

Burris refutes this notion, saying the state should be free to spend its own money as it sees fit, just as Philadelphia spends its own local money on its exchange.

“There’s really no good reason we couldn’t have needle exchanges across the state wherever people are injecting,” Burris said.

Outlaws No More?

With states like Indiana supporting needle exchanges — at least minimally — and Gov. Tom Wolf’s recent embrace of the anti-overdose drug naloxone, supporters are hopeful that needle exchanges can come up from the underground.

Change could come in several ways.

One could be executive action from Wolf, similar to what Pence did in Indiana or what former Gov. Rendell did on a smaller scale as mayor of Philadelphia.

“The governor could say, ‘Look, this is a health emergency,’”  said Benitez, of Prevention Point Philadelphia.

A representative from the governor’s press office did not respond to inquiries about Wolf’s stance on syringe exchanges.

The governor, however, wants to limit the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, deputy press secretary Ajeenah Amir said in an email statement.

That includes working with state agencies and communities to “promote awareness about the dangers of contracting disease through shared needles,” the statement said.

Lawmakers in Harrisburg could also remove the word “syringe” from the state’s paraphernalia law, something several other states have done already.

If syringes aren’t explicitly named, supporters said, programs would have more protection to hand out clean needles without worrying about law enforcement.

Or local governments could follow the lead of Philadelphia and Allegheny County and either declare a health emergency or pass a local ordinance to authorize exchanges.

For volunteers like Pagan, that would mean harm reduction gets an official blessing and public health efforts would no longer be at odds with state law.

“They’ve been doing it here for more than 20 years in Philadelphia,” Burris said. “And the sky has not fallen.”

Reach Jeffrey Benzing at 412-315-0265 or at jbenzing@publicsource.org. Follow him on Twitter @jabenzing.

Take Action

Despite public health research that supports needle exchanges, state law continues to say that distributing syringes for drug use is illegal.

If you support or oppose a change in law, let your state senator and state representative know.

If you want to know more about the Commonwealth’s response to the heroin crisis and increased risk for HIV and hepatitis C, contact the Department of Health and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs.

If you support or oppose executive action, contact Gov. Tom Wolf.

If you support local changes, contact your city and county government.

If you support or oppose federal funding for needle exchanges, contact your senator and representative.

For more information on local harm reduction, contact Prevention Point Pittsburgh, Prevention Point Philadelphia, Lancaster Harm Reduction Project or the Harrisburg Harm Reduction Project.

Visit the CDC online for federal research on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and needle exchanges.

--Compiled by Jeffrey Benzing