Candidate withdraws from MAC

Mike McReynolds has withdrawn his candidacy from the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council race as he continues to recover from the serious injuries he suffered in the Metrolink 111 train crash in Chatsworth on Sept. 12.

"There's a part of me that wishes I hadn't withdrawn, but I had to do it. I have to recover," McReynolds said. He withdrew from the race shortly after returning home from a two-week stay in the hospital.

McReynolds decided to run for a seat on the Oak Park MAC in order to serve the community he and his family love. McReynolds, his wife, Kathy, and their children—Jessica, 15, Moriah, 13, and Jeremiah, 11— moved to Oak Park from La Mirada last September. They relocated after Kathy started working for Joni and Friends, a Christian ministry for the disabled in Agoura Hills.

McReynolds believed his background as an engineering manager for the Metropolitan Water District would be valuable to the MAC.

For nine years, McReynolds had commuted by train without incident to his downtown Los Angeles office. The first eight years he made the 20-minute ride from La Mirada. The move to Oak Park extended the commute to 40 minutes.

When the accident occurred, McReynolds was on the upper deck of the second car, surrounded by passengers. On his way home he was thinking about how he was going to teach the story of creation to preschoolers in his Sunday school class at Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village. He decided to use puppets to make the story interactive and show the children how much diversity is in the story.

"I thought about what I would have the puppets say, about how God makes animals that fly, that swim, that walk on land, that live in the water, that live in deserts," McReynolds said.

He said he doesn't remember much about the accident, only that in the aftermath he was lying on the ground and couldn't open his eyes. He could hear people asking him questions and telling him he was at the hospital.

"I have no memory of Friday night after the accident, or Saturday or Sunday," McReynolds said.

When he woke up on Monday, he was in Providence Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills fighting to survive a skull fracture; lung puncture; internal bleeding; damage to the right ventricle of his heart; broken ribs, collar bones and shoulder blades; and multiple lacerations and bruises. Tubes covered his body, some to inflate his lungs, others to raise his blood pressure. Weak, he could only write brief notes to communicate. For 72 hours it was unclear if McReynolds would survive.

At the time of the accident, Kathy McReynolds was in the grocery store shopping for the evening meal. She had tried calling her husband to ask what he wanted for dinner and was surprised when he didn't answer as he always did. She received a message left by a stranger informing her that her husband had been in an accident and was being taken to a hospital. She tried calling the man back, but he never answered. Kathy rushed home, turned on the TV news and saw the train wreck.

On the way to the crash site, Kathy received a call from a Holy Cross staff member who would not give her information on her husband's condition, but urged her to come to the hospital immediately.

"It was absolutely sheer chaos at the hospital. Nobody knew where anyone was. There was a lot of screaming and crying. I've never seen anything like that, and I'm a medical ethicist who's been at patients' bedsides," Kathy said.

The family spent several hours waiting for news.

"A nurse came in and called me out of the room. I thought they were going to tell me he was dead," Kathy said. "They said 'He's critical, on life support, sedated. We're going to put him in ICU.' I was in shock. I collapsed right there."

The family spent the next 72 hours not knowing if the beloved father and husband would survive.

"There were transfusions, sedation, painkillers. It was devastating for us as we tried to hold it all together," Kathy McReynolds said.

Mike McReynolds is still processing what happened and slowly healing. His injuries make it difficult to drive or type, but he hopes to return to work in several weeks. Kathy and the children are also recovering from the stress of the accident.

"Dealing with the trauma, having to make decisions on things like death benefits was hard on us as a family," Kathy McReynolds said. "I don't wish any of this on my worst enemy."