SALEM — The blinds are pulled in Samantha Mattei's bedroom to keep out the light. Visitors are asked to speak softly because noise, even footsteps on the floor, makes her head hurt.
"More than one person talking, even if it's me, is too much," said Mattei, 19, as she lay under the covers in the darkened bedroom of her family home, a block from Mack Park.
The Merrimack College freshman, the daughter of Fred and Cecile Mattei, suffered serious injuries Friday night in an MBTA trolley crash in downtown Boston.
She fractured her back, needed five stitches to close a cut over her left eye, and suffered a concussion that has left her dizzy, is causing headaches and makes it difficult to speak.
"She's stuttering," her father said.
Police said the 24-year-old driver of the trolley was using his cell phone to send a text message to his girlfriend when the vehicle rear-ended another T car, injuring an estimated 50 people. Investigators said the driver failed to see a red light.
The accident happened at 7:18 p.m. in a tunnel between the Government Center and Park Street stations. Mattei was seated in the front car, the same trolley as the driver.
Mattei, who is called "Sam," had just finished the final day of freshman year on Friday and was on her way to a concert in Boston with a friend, Lindsay Braga of Lynn.
They took a Blue Line train from Revere and switched to the Green Line at Government Center. The trolley had just left the station and was heading toward Park Street when it smashed into the rear of another MBTA car.
The trolley lights "just like blinked, and I was on the ground," said Mattei, who spoke haltingly, sometimes having trouble finding the right words or getting the words out.
Mattei was thrown from her seat and struck a hard object, most likely a seat or a post. It took her friend, Braga, a few seconds to find her because the trolley had gone pitch-black and many passengers had been knocked to the floor.
Several people were using the light from cell phones to search for lost glasses and other items, they said.
"She kept on saying her head was hurt," Braga said. "I felt around, and one side of her head was sticky."
Braga had just helped Mattei sit up and lean against a seat, when she passed out and fell backward.
"The next thing I remember was an EMT putting a light in my eyes," Mattei said.
The first rescuers on the scene were Boston firefighters who put Mattei in a neck brace, got her on a stretcher and carried her off the MBTA car and through the dark tunnel, with Braga following right behind.
Many of the passengers were carried out of the Government Center station and laid out on stretchers in City Hall Plaza.
Mattei said she was placed in the same ambulance as the MBTA driver, who also suffered serious injuries. She could hear him talking to the medical personnel.
"He wanted to know if anyone was in critical condition," she said. "He was concerned about the passengers."
The driver also said "he looked down for a minute, or looked away for a minute," she said. She does not recall him saying anything about texting.
Mattei was taken to Boston Medical Center, where she was held until Saturday night.
In the days after the crash, she has heard news reports about the driver allegedly texting his girlfriend. She was asked if the news makes her angry.
"I'm not allowed to text or use my cell phone at my job, and I'm an office assistant," said Mattei, a dean's list student who works part time at Tache Real Estate in Salem. "Why is it OK for a (MBTA) driver, who actually needs to pay attention, to text or talk on the phone?"
Following the crash, the MBTA banned drivers from using cell phones at work.
If there is a silver lining to the accident, Mattei said it taught her something about human nature, something about the goodness of people.
"People pulled together on the train," she said.
She remembers a young woman coming to her aid. "I think she put a maxi pad on my head to stem the bleeding. She had curly hair and nice eyes."
Most of all, she remembers her friend, Braga, who injured her arm, calling her name out in the dark and coming to help her, then riding in the ambulance with her to the hospital.
"She stayed with me," Mattei said.
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