During any weekday rush period, the block of Adams Street near the north entrance to Union Station is a chaotic swarm of activity, with Metra commuters streaming toward Loop office buildings while taxicabs and buses jostle for space along the three-lane street.
Concerns about what could happen there if pedestrians and vehicles collided were realized Thursday, when a runaway cab suddenly burst backward through a crowded crosswalk outside the station entrance about 8 a.m., injuring two pedestrians and the driver of the vehicle.
Shari Evans, 23, a Loyola University graduate student who lives in Darien, was crossing the street when she saw the cab racing toward her, her father said.
“She said she was standing in the middle of the sidewalk and all of sudden she sees this cab backing up,” said Lance Evans outside the Northwestern Memorial Hospital emergency room where Evans was taken. “She couldn’t believe it wasn’t stopping, so she started running — and then he hits the pole and then he hits her.”
“Thank God for the pole, and thank God she saw the car coming,” Lance Evans said.
Witnesses said pedestrians crossing the street at South Riverside Plaza, just west of the Chicago River, began screaming and fleeing as the cab crossed diagonally through two lanes of traffic, jumped a curb, scraped a light pole and stopped against a concrete bridge abutment.
Evans and another pedestrian were treated and released from hospitals Thursday afternoon, while the driver, identified by police as Brian Duako, remained at Northwestern with an ankle injury Thursday evening. A female passenger in the back seat of Duako’s cab was not injured.
Duako, 38, of the 1100 block of West Morse Avenue was cited with negligent driving for the incident, said Police Officer John Mirabelli.
Duako exited his cab thinking that it was in park when it was actually in reverse, police said. When he realized his mistake, he re-entered the car and tried to apply the brake, but instead hit the accelerator, throwing the car backward.
Schuyler Pepin and Shaun Shostack, newspaper vendors working near the street during the accident, said Duako had been arguing with another taxi driver before the incident.
Police said they could not say what caused Duako to exit his vehicle, but said that Duako’s leg became caught between his car and another vehicle, causing his ankle injury.
