Danbury Man Killed in Fatal Metro-North Crash

A Danbury resident was one of six people killed when a Metro-North train collided with an SUV on the tracks in Valhalla, New York, on Tuesday evening.

Aditya Tomar, 41, of Danbury, died in the deadly crash, according to Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton. The driver of the SUV and four other train passengers were also killed.

Family members said he was on his way home from work in New York, and confusion at the hospital gave them false hope Tomar was still alive.

"Somebody there at security said, 'He's fine, he's undergoing X-rays,' so they came home," said Tomar's mother-in-law, Dee Persaud. "We were going to visit at 8 o'clock in the morning."

But in the morning, there was no one to visit.

"Everybody there was accounted for and he wasn't one of them," Persaud said, adding that dental records eventually confirmed that her son-in-law was among the six victims.

She remembered him Thursday as fun-loving, brilliant, kind and generous, not just to his wife, but to everyone around him.

"There is never a time he is not there for us," she said.

Danbury resident Fred George escaped injury by chance after taking an earlier train home, but said Wednesday that he feared he knew some of the people killed.

Another Connecticut resident was aboard and escaped the fiery crash. Fred Buonocore, of Ridgefield, normally sits in the front car, which took the brunt of the impact, but he didn't on Tuesday because he had to run to catch the train and hurried into a middle car.

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