SEPTA: Man's death not dispatcher's fault

A man died on a SEPTA NiteOwl bus early Sunday after a dispatcher told the bus driver to continue on her route despite the driver's report that the passenger was unresponsive, drooling and had urinated in his pants.

SEPTA defended the dispatcher's actions yesterday, saying that Leonard Sedden, 68, merely appeared to be asleep and that there was no evidence at the time that he needed urgent care.

Before the bus left 69th Street Terminal, its driver, Natika Manfra, expressed concern to a dispatcher on duty at SEPTA's control center when she couldn't "get any response" from the soiled passenger.

At 4:12 a.m., the dispatcher told her to continue on her scheduled route and that a supervisor would board the bus along the way to help.

"I don't want to delay service," he said, according to a recording of the radio call.

SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said about 20 other passengers were on the bus, which stops at Market-Frankford El stops at that time of day, when it left 69th Street.

A supervisor boarded the bus at 15th and Market streets and determined that the man was still breathing, Maloney said. He advised Manfra to continue to Frankford Transportation Center, so police could handle the situation when they arrived.

Police boarded the bus at Frankford about 5:30 a.m. and said Sedden was dead.

The man died of drug intoxication and hypertensive heart disease, Jeff Moran, spokesman for the Medical Examiner's Office, confirmed yesterday.

Sedden, whose last known address is St. John's Hospice in Center City, had a record of arrests and was awaiting a court hearing on drug-possession charges.

"It just boggles me that I was riding around and he was deceased and other passengers were getting on," Manfra said.

But the supervisor followed protocol, Maloney said, which states that help will be dispatched if there is evidence of a medical emergency, or if the driver specifically requests an ambulance or police backup.

There was "no sense of distress or urgency" in Manfra's radio calls to the dispatcher, Maloney said.

SEPTA receives calls from drivers about medical emergencies on at least a weekly basis, Maloney said.

It is "quite usual" for the NiteOwl shuttle to carry passengers who are inebriated or on drugs, Maloney said, especially early on a Sunday morning, after bars have closed.

He estimated that about 10 people die on SEPTA each year.