Friends, strangers pay tribute at Buffalo native's funeral
Mourners extol the life of D.C. train operator
Terry Slaughter was a high school classmate of Jeanice McMillan’s and remembers that the Buffalo native kept to herself.
Neville Grant was a friend of Mc- Millan’s before she moved to Washington, D. C., in 1996. He’ll always remember her smile.
Brian Brooks didn’t know her as well, but he’ll be forever grateful to her.
“She did save lives. She saved my life,” he said.
Slaughter, Grant and Brooks were among hundreds of mourners who packed Mount Olive Baptist Church— which seats 1,650 people — for McMillan’s funeral Wednesday.
Brooks was the operator of a Washington Metro train in Washington, D. C., that was rammed from behind by a train operated by McMillan. Nine people, including McMillan, died in the June 22 crash.
McMillan — or Jan, as she was called — has been hailed as a hero after the National Transportation Safety Board announced last week that when investigators tested an automated train control system that should have stopped the trains from colliding, the system failed.
She died, Metro officials said, while pulling on the emergency brake to slow her train as much as she could to lessen the impact of the crash, an act Brooks said probably saved his life and the lives of others.
Brooks was among a delegation of 30 Washington Metro train operators who traveled to Buffalo for the funeral.
“She was a hero. Please do not weep too long,” he told the standing-room-only crowd in the East Delavan Avenue church.
McMillan, 42, a Turner-Carroll High School graduate who attended Niagara University, was a single parent to 19-year-old Jordan.
She moved with her son to the Washington area, following her brothers, Gerald Jr. and Vernard McMillan, to the nation’s capital.
Slaughter graduated with Jan from Turner-Carroll and knew all of the McMillan siblings. He played football with the brothers as kids, he said.
He remembers McMillan as a “humble” person who never got angry with anyone.
“She always had a smile,” he said.
“Every time I saw her she had that big smile,” said Grant, who was a member of the choir from Mount Ararat Temple of Prayer that performed the musical selection.
McMillan was a letter carrier for the U. S. Postal Service from 1997 until 2004. She joined the D. C. Metro system in 2007, winning a promotion to train operator last December.
Alfredo R. O’Neal was a coworker of McMillan’s who worked the same route.
“There’s not a lot of people who would have done what she did, including me. To turn that corner and see that train and see your time is about to come . . .” he said, pausing with emotion. “I don’t know if I could’ve done it.”
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