Lethal Dose

The old “Oh, I thought it was a road” excuse!

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — An off-duty police officer and her husband, a volunteer fire chief, rescued a woman from her stalled car seconds before a train smashed into it, police said. The 63-year-old driver apparently mistook the Long Island Rail Road tracks for a road Thursday evening, authorities said. Her car became stuck on the rails with a train fast approaching. She screamed that she couldn’t get out of the car and needed help, said witness Jennifer Freiermuth, 28. Randi LoCicero, off duty from her job at the New York Police Department, and Anthony LoCicero ran to the car as the crossing gates came down, Randi LoCicero said. As the train’s horn blared, the couple yanked open the door and pulled out the driver, who needed crutches to walk, Randi LoCicero said. Moments later, a train plowed into the car, overturning it and dragging it a short distance. Neither the woman nor anyone on the train was hurt, authorities said. “She was a little mad we didn’t get her pocketbook, but you know, that’s life,” Randi LoCicero said. The driver wasn’t identified.

Is it wrong to wonder what kind of purse it was?

Thanks to Kiki Maraschino for sending this while I was on vacation. It’s been a long time since I wrote about train accidents and this one’s a doozy.

2 Killed On Train Tracks After Car, High Heels Stuck

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Police said two women were killed when a train shoved their car into them as they struggled in high heels to get away from the disabled vehicle.

The collision happened shortly after midnight Thursday when their 1996 Honda Passport got stuck on the tracks as its driver attempted to make a U-turn.

The women got out of the car but apparently struggled to flee the right-of-way as the train approached.

“It appears they were in high heels and having a hard time getting away quickly with the gravel they were walking on,” said police spokesman Steven Frasher.

Their escape was also blocked by a wall that runs alongside the railroad tracks, Frasher said.

The pair, both from San Bernardino, were taken to a hospital where the car’s 18-year-old passenger was pronounced dead. The 23-year-old driver died a few hours later, Frasher said.

Their names were withheld until authorities can contact relatives.

CBS had this picture but I think it’s a mockup:

Eve sends this little tidbit today, reminding us that indeed, trains may want to kill you, but they’ll give you ample time to get out of the way.

MWOOD PLACE, Ohio (AP) — A train struck and injured a pedestrian who was sending a text message on his cell phone while crossing railroad tracks, a collision that hurled him about 50 feet, authorities and witnesses said Monday. Zachariah Smith, 18, waited for a southbound train to pass Monday morning. He then walked around a gate and onto the tracks, apparently unaware that another train was coming from the other direction, said witness Mike Billups. “The horn was blowing like mad and the kid was text messaging,” said Mayor Richard Ellison, who went to the scene and talked to several witnesses after hearing of the accident. “The kid apparently was just daydreaming.” Smith was knocked out by the collision, Billups said. He was listed in serious condition Monday night.

Dammit! Why didn’t they find out what the message was?

This was sent to me as a link from TunaCrust. I love that train accidents are uniting us all over the globe! It sounds so much better in Aussie English, too.

News.com.au reports “Train track death plot backfires“. The article talks about a man, nay a dumbass, who got himself a bit dead when his attempt to kill his girlfriend took a bit of twist.

It seems that the man and his girlfriend were having an argument. It also seems that the man came up with quite a novel way of resolving the argument. He parked the car that his girlfriend was in on a level crossing in the San Fernando Valley neighbourhood of Sunland. So far he hasn’t achieved argument resolution.

Argument resolution came in a disguise. A pretty good disguise too. It appeared to all that saw it that resolution came disguised as a 450 tonne commuter train with 132 passengers aboard. If there was a door prize for best disguise at that argument, resolution would have won hands down.

So now we have a girl sitting in a car. We have a car, with a girl in it, parked on a level crossing. Given the choice it seems like being outside of the car would be a better place then inside the car. Especially with 450 tonne resolution approaching.

And then there’s the twist. Resolution, disguised as a 450 tonne commuter train with 132 passengers aboard, hits car. Car hits boyfriend. Boyfriend dies. Girl ends up in hospital, alive, but injured.

updated in today’s LA Times: she changes her story!

And I’m match-gaming it, b/c of a nasty email i got from .. oh never mind.

Based on ___’s statement and witness accounts, detectives have deemed the incident to be “an attempted murder-suicide,” Rock said.

But in a telephone interview with a Times reporter Tuesday afternoon, ___ said ___ never intended to kill her.

“He wasn’t trying to kill anybody,” she said. “He was trying to outrun the train.”

___ said the couple had been rushing from one auto body shop to another looking for a car part. She said she had an 18-month old daughter waiting for her at home.

“I didn’t tell them that my future husband was trying to kill me,” she said. “He wouldn’t do that.” Wright, who also denied that the couple had been arguing at the time of the crash, said she was dazed when she talked to detectives. “I told them I didn’t remember nothing,” she said. “I told them he was trying to outrun the train.” Wright said she had known ___ for years and been romantically involved with him for three months. But during her interview with a reporter she seemed unaware of his death.

“Where is ____?” she asked at one point.

Several members of ____’ family also dismissed police accounts of what happened.

“For them to say it was murder-suicide — it was not right,” said Michael ____, ___’ uncle. “That is not him. It was just bad judgment.”

Police said ___ survived because ____ might have pulled slightly askew onto the track, causing the train to hit the car’s rear quarter panel and passenger door and sending it spinning into the guardrail.

When the train hit the car again, ____ was ejected, Rock said. ____, who remains hospitalized, suffered numerous cuts and a concussion.

We know this. Railroad crossings are loud, have red flashing lights, big black and white X’s, sounds, buzzers, honking trains, and vibrating tracks. So why do people still try to beat trains? Eve and I cannot help but tsk-tsk every day as we peruse the news for ridiculous, preventable accidents. Trains want to kill you, people. That’s that.

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — The six people killed by a fast-moving Amtrak train in Riverbank Tuesday afternoon include two infants, a young boy, and two teenage girls.

The woman driving the Chevrolet Tracker the six were in tried to make it through a railroad crossing as the train was approaching, according to officials. The driver tried to back up, but hit the railroad arm and decided at the last minute to try and get across the tracks.

Trains are allowed to go 79 mph on the stretch of track near Modesto, which is the speed the train is believed to have been traveling. Residents in the area said they have often worried about safety at the crossing. No one aboard the Oakland-bound train was injured. Passengers were delayed hours by the crash, which many who saw the carnage called a terrible accident.

In Singapore …
Man’s head hit; third train accident in four months

IN WHAT was apparently another freak accident, a train hit a man’s head yesterday while he was standing on the platform at Tampines MRT Station.
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His left foot got stuck between the train and the platform as he fell, thrown off-balance by the impact.
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According to eyewitnesses, a fellow commuter managed to free the man, a Chinese in his late 50s, within minutes, before officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force arrived.
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The man, who suffered injuries to his left ankle and head, was semi-conscious when he was taken to Changi General Hospital. A hospital spokesperson told Today that the man had been warded and was in stable condition.
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Police are investigating the incident which occurred at about 11am yesterday, delaying west-bound train service for about eight minutes, an SMRT spokesperson said.
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Yesterday’s accident involving train commuters was the third in the last four months.
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In January, train services were disrupted for more than 20 minutes, after a woman’s leg was trapped between a train and the platform at Clementi station.
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Early last month, Mr Kenneth Chew, a 40-year-old accountant, required stitches to his head after a train pulling in at Woodlands station hit him when he fainted near the edge of the platform.
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Yesterday, Mr Chew’s sister told Today that her brother was “recovering but tired very easily”, and was still unable to return to work.
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When told of the latest incident, she said: “I hope SMRT can look into more preventive measures to prevent such accidents.”

i did not write the following headline, i swear:

Compensation halved for train accident

An intellectually disabled woman whose leg was partially amputated after she was hit by a train in southern Sydney, has been awarded more than $800,000 in damages.

Leigh Anne Russell was 21 when she saw a boy jump onto a train on a freight line at Mascot in February 2002, and tried to do likewise.

She was dragged along when the train picked up speed, injuring one leg below the knee so badly that it could not be saved.

Ms Russell sued the Rail Infrastructure Corporation for $1.7 million in damages, alleging failure of duty of care, because it had not repaired the hole in the fence that she used to reach the railway line.

Justice Virginia Bell of the Supreme Court ordered the company to pay damages, but halved the amount to $852,000 because of contributory negligence by the woman.

Fog may have been factor in Buchanan County accident

WINTHROP — A collision between a semitrailer and train Tuesday morning sent one person to the hospital.

Roger Frick, 52, of Waukon, was driving a 1999 International tractor-trailer north at about 6:15 a.m. on Iowa Highway 187.

According to the Iowa State Patrol, Frick failed to stop at a railroad crossing and his rig hit a Canadian National freight train. The train was traveling east.

The engineer did not realize a collision had occurred and did not stop the train until reaching Petersburg in eastern Delaware County, according to the state patrol.

Frick works for the United Cooperative Association in Monona.

The Iowa State Patrol noted thick fog at the time covered the intersection, which is about four miles east of Winthrop.

Frick was transported to Regional Medical Center in Manchester and later transferred to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. Information about his condition was not available this morning.

Man killed by train at 9th Street crossing

Lenard McDonald’s family says he had a strong will to live despite his disability

A Missouri Valley man was killed Thursday afternoon when he was struck by a westbound train at the South 9th Street crossing on the Union Pacific Mainline. Lenard (Bruce) McDonald, 40, died at the scene. Missouri Valley Police, who responded immediately, followed closely by Missouri Valley Rescue, said McDonald was handicapped and was using a walker at the time of the accident. He was located south of the stopped train and rescue workers had to drive west until they could get past the train and double back to the scene.

Chief of Police Ed Murray said witnesses stated that it appeared that McDonald was attempting to step back off the track as the train approached, but did not make it in time. The long hopper car train was stopped for over two hours during the investigation, blocking all of the main crossings in town. The accident occurred at about 1:44 p.m., police said.

An autopsy was scheduled for Friday at the Douglas County, Neb. Coroner’s Office.
Authorities did not speculate on the why McDonald crossed the mainline Union Pacific, but his family said he crossed there several time a day and had a strong will to live.
He apparently stepped around the cross arms at the crossing, using his walker, and family speculated that a wheel might have become stuck in the track when he tried to step back away from the approaching train. He was severely injured in a motorcycle accident five years ago.

why do they do autopsies? you don’t cross train tracks with a walker!

Rail workers clear shipment to proceed, then watch accident happen

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Workers had just finished repairs on a railroad bridge and were watching as the track collapsed under a train hauling pieces of space shuttle rockets, officials said Thursday.

The train, carrying rocket booster segments to Florida that were intended for shuttle launches this year, was the first to go over the bridge after the repairs, and testing wrapped up only moments before the crash, authorities said.

Work was done on the pilings that hold the trestle up over a boggy area and on other parts of the structure, said Mike Williams of Genesee & Wyoming Inc., which owns the train’s operator.

and in Norway …

A Vestfold Line train collided with a passenger car around 10 p.m. on Tuesday night near Barkåker, about 95 kilometers south of Oslo.

The front of the car was smashed in the collision, but no one was injured in the accident, police report.

Einar Paulsen of the Vestfold police said that the car stopped at the barrier and then proceeded forward when the barrier lifted. The train then approached and the barrier went down behind the car.

“This is confirmed by witnesses,” Paulsen told Aftenposten.no. “Only luck prevented (the two passengers) from being injured.”

The driver of the car, a 39-year-old Rjukan man, was sent to hospital for a blood test as police suspected he was under the influence of alcohol. The driver admitted to having beer after the accident.

Residents of the area near the accident said they had warned rail authorities that the barrier was not functioning properly.

“I see the barriers from the office window. As recently as two weeks ago the barrier went up and down three times without a train passing. In one case it stayed down for 15 minutes, another time for 10 minutes,” said Nils Atle Berge, who was upset that the National Rail Administration (JBV) had not fixed the barrier despite several warnings in recent months.

i’m confused. did he have beer after the accident?

High School Student Hurt by Train
Teen May have Fallen While Climbing Between Cars

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — A 17-year-old high school student is expected to survive, but has reportedly suffered severe injuries to one of his legs, after trying to climb between two cars of a slow-moving train in Commerce City.

The accident happened about 7:00 a.m. as the junior was walking to Adams City High School. Commerce City police Lieutenant Chuck Saunier says the boy apparently slipped or tripped while trying to get between the cars, and fell underneath the train.

The engineer was unaware the accident had occurred and continued down the tracks. Motorists waiting in their vehicles for the train to pass saw the teen fall and called authorities. Saunier says an initial investigation shows the train crossing gates and signals were working at the time of the accident. The teen was taken to The Children’s Hospital in Denver, but his exact condition is unknown. – but i think we can guess.

“ooh, it’s a busy day, Tish!”

I’ve said it before, I’ve blogged it before, and I’ll say it again: you have more to fear from trains than a car or plane! From my friend Eve, who first alerted me to the startling statistic of train related fatalities:

NYT–Two men were struck and injured by trains late Saturday and early yesterday, one by a subway in Brooklyn and one by a commuter train in Queens, the police said. The first man, 26, was found on the L train tracks near the Grand Street station in East Williamsburg shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, the police said. He had been struck by a train and critically injured and was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center. It was unclear how he had come to be on the tracks, but criminal activity was not suspected, the police said. The second man, identified as Eduardo Zenteno, 19, of Brooklyn, was on the Long Island Rail Road tracks between the Woodside and Shea Stadium stations when a westbound train struck him about 4:30 a.m. yesterday, according to Susan McGowan, a spokeswoman for the railroad. He was in serious but stable condition at Elmhurst Hospital Center yesterday, she said.