Three firefighters and a dozen passengers had been injured in Florida final week when a hearth truck with its lights flashing drove round rail crossing arms and into the trail of a high-speed passenger practice after ready for one more practice to cross, in response to video of the incident and an individual briefed on what occurred.
The crash occurred at 10:45 a.m. Saturday in crowded downtown Delray Seashore. Within the aftermath the Brightline practice was stopped on the tracks, its entrance destroyed, a couple of block away from the Delray Seashore Fireplace Rescue truck. Its ladder was ripped off and within the grass a number of yards away, The Sun-Sentinel reported.
The Delray Seashore Fireplace Rescue mentioned in a social media put up that three Delray Seashore firefighters had been in steady situation at a hospital. Palm Seashore County Fireplace Rescue took 12 folks from the practice to the hospital with minor accidents.
The individual aware of the small print of the crash, who was not licensed to reveal what occurred due to the continuing investigation and spoke on situation of anonymity, mentioned the hearth truck stopped on the crossing and waited for a freight practice to go by earlier than maneuvering across the lowered crossing arms.
Video of the collision reveals the hearth truck driving round automobiles stopped on the crossing with its lights flashing to cross the double tracks.
Emmanuel Amaral rushed to the scene on his golf cart after listening to a loud crash and screeching practice brakes from the place he was having breakfast a few blocks away. He noticed firefighters climbing out of the entrance window of their broken truck and pulling injured colleagues away from the tracks. One in every of their helmets got here to relaxation a number of hundred toes away from the crash.
“The entrance of that practice is totally smashed, and there was even a few of the elements to the hearth truck caught within the entrance of the practice, nevertheless it cut up the automotive proper in half. It cut up the hearth truck proper in half, and the particles was in every single place,” Amaral mentioned.
A Brightline security officer mentioned your complete neighborhood is concerned in guaranteeing railroad security and drivers ought to by no means go round closed gates.
The Federal Railroad Administration will examine. A spokesperson for the Nationwide Transportation Security Board mentioned within the afternoon that it was nonetheless gathering details about the crash and had not determined but whether or not to research.
The NTSB is already investigating two crashes involving Brightline’s high-speed trains that killed three folks early this 12 months on the similar crossing in Melbourne alongside the railroad’s route between Miami and Orlando.
Greater than 100 folks have died after being hit by trains since Brightline started operations in July 2017 — giving the railroad the worst loss of life price within the nation. However most of these deaths have been both suicides, pedestrians who tried to run throughout the tracks forward of a practice or drivers who went round crossing gates as an alternative of ready for a practice to cross. Brightline has not been discovered to be at fault in these earlier deaths.
Railroad safety has been a priority since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023, spilling poisonous chemical substances that caught fireplace. Regulators urged the business to enhance security and members of Congress proposed a package deal of reforms, however railroads haven’t made many main modifications to their operations and the invoice has stalled.
Earlier this month the 2 operators of a Union Pacific practice had been killed after it collided with a semitrailer truck that was blocking a crossing within the small West Texas city of Pecos. Three different folks had been injured, and the native Chamber of Commerce constructing was broken.
Photograph: The fireplace truck after the collision. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Solar-Sentinel by way of AP)
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