MBTA driver recounts Green Line accident

BOSTON (WHDH) -- The MBTA driver injured when his train was rear ended last month spoke to 7News about his frightening ordeal.

Choking back tears, MBTA driver Stephen Perno spoke about last month’s accident at Boylston Street that sent passengers flying and left him with a neck fracture.

"Nobody wants to see anybody get hurt. We have families as you’ve seen and we know other people have families," Perno said.

He recalled in detail the day his trolley was hit from behind, throwing him into the train's dashboard and dozens of passengers to the ground.

"It happened so fast. I saw the people inside the train actually you know, fall. a few of them. It was quite scary. There was a loud noise, a loud bang and all of a sudden the train lurched forward," said Perno.

Now he is moving forward. Though a few weeks late, he received the safe driver's award he was supposed to get the day after the accident.

Perno loves trains, but he loves working at the T even more. The accident was his first in his 27 years on the job. He said this is not how he wanted to get his 5 minutes of fame.

"If I could turn back the time, the clock and had it been a minute sooner, my train maybe would have been out of the station when the other train came and none of this would have happened,” said Perno.

Perno has not yet been cleared to go back to work.