COLUMBIA, S.C. - People trying to recover from the Graniteville train crash that spilled chlorine and damaged their health, property and livelihoods now are worried about lawsuit reforms the Senate is considering.

Rodney Johnson said Tuesday he doesn't understand how lawmakers could pass legislation that could keep victims "from receiving compensation for our injuries."

Johnson is credited with saving lives by retrieving a respirator and driving 10 people out of an area contaminated with chlorine gas after the recent Aiken County disaster.

Tort reform debate has simmered in the Legislature for years. Johnson sees it in the context of the train crash and an upbringing that emphasized personal responsibility.

"This debate over limiting our rights is really about people trying to avoid their responsibility," he said.

Johnson was at the Statehouse before the Senate Judiciary Committee took up 16 bills dealing with various aspects of how people can take legal issues to court and whether there will be financial limits set if they win their cases.

Columbia lawyer Richard Gergel, who is representing several people affected by the train wreck and chemical leak, says one of the bills would make it tough to sue companies that share a small portion of the responsibility.

For instance, companies who are deemed to be less than 20 percent responsible for injuries or damages could not be sued. In Graniteville, it is possible that no company would "exceed the arbitrary 20 percent threshold," Gergel said.

For nearly an hour Tuesday, it appeared the bills would head to the Senate floor without either side getting to testify on the changes.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said he opposed sending many of the bills to subcommittees for public hearings, particularly a medical malpractice bill he's sponsoring.

"Everybody knows where they are on this issue," he said.

Subcommittees would be a waste of time and play into the hands of opponents who have been trying to delay tort reform, said McConnell, who's an attorney.

His medical malpractice bill says people suing doctors can receive no more than $250,000 in noneconomic damages, or awards given in addition to the medical costs, lost wages and other financial damages.

There are exceptions. For instance, the cap wouldn't apply when a doctor's conduct was willful, reckless or malicious.

The state's medical community and insurance companies support that measure. They say that high malpractice insurance rates are driving physicians out of critical care areas such as obstetrics.

But lawsuits are about the only recourse the public has, said Helen Haskell. In 2000, her son Lewis Blackman bled to death because of an undiagnosed perforated ulcer caused by an overdose of prescribed pain medication at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Lawsuits "are the only accountability that exists in the medical establishment," Haskell said.

After an 11-11 vote failed to send that bill to subcommittee, Judiciary Committee members warned McConnell that tort reform bills were moving too fast and public hearings should be held.

"I am very concerned," said Sen. John Hawkins, a Republican lawyer from Spartanburg. "We want to be fair. We want to have the appearance of fairness."

McConnell relented when opponents and supporters on the committee agreed the bills would be reviewed by a subcommittee and their fate decided within two weeks.