Train hits fire truck on tracks in Florida, 15 injured

Three firefighters and a dozen passengers were injured in Florida on Saturday when a fire truck with its lights flashing drove around rail crossing arms and into the path of a highspeed passenger train after waiting for another train to pass according to video of the incident and a person briefed on what happenedThe crash happened at 1045 am in crowded downtown Delray Beach In the aftermath the Brightline train was stopped on the tracks its front destroyed about a block away from the Delray Beach Fire Rescue truck Its ladder was ripped off and in the grass several yards away The SunSentinel reportedThe Delray Beach Fire Rescue said in a social media post that three Delray Beach firefighters were in stable condition at a hospital Palm Beach County Fire Rescue took 12 people from the train to the hospital with minor injuriesThe person familiar with the details of the crash who was not authorised to disclose what happened because of the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity said the fire truck stopped at the crossing and waited for a freight train to go by before maneuvering around the lowered crossing arms Video of the collision shows the fire truck driving around cars stopped at the crossing with its lights flashing to cross the double tracksEmmanuel Amaral rushed to the scene on his golf cart after hearing a loud crash and screeching train brakes from where he was having breakfast a couple of blocks away He saw firefighters climbing out of the front window of their damaged truck and pulling injured colleagues away from the tracks One of their helmets came to rest several hundred feet away from the crashThe front of that train is completely smashed and there was even some of the parts to the fire truck stuck in the front of the train but it split the car right in half It split the fire truck right in half and the debris was everywhere Amaral saidA Brightline safety officer said the entire community is involved in ensuring railroad safety and drivers should never go around closed gates The Federal Railroad Administration will investigate A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said in the afternoon that it was still gathering information about the crash and had not decided yet whether to investigateThe NTSB is already investigating two crashes involving Brightlines highspeed trains that killed three people early this year at the same crossing in Melbourne along the railroads route between Miami and OrlandoMore than 100 people have died after being hit by trains since Brightline began operations in July 2017 giving the railroad the worst death rate in the nation But most of those deaths have been either suicides pedestrians who tried to run across the tracks ahead of a train or drivers who went around crossing gates instead of waiting for a train to pass Brightline has not been found to be at fault in those previous deathsRailroad safety has been a concern since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine Ohio in February 2023 spilling toxic chemicals that caught fire Regulators urged the industry to improve safety and members of Congress proposed a package of reforms but railroads have not made many major changes to their operations and the bill has stalledEarlier this month the two operators of a Union Pacific train were killed after it collided with a semitrailer truck that was blocking a crossing in the small West Texas town of Pecos Three other people were injured and the local Chamber of Commerce building was damagedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever