A high-speed passenger train collided with a fire engine at a crossing on Saturday in Florida, injuring three firefighters and at least a dozen train passengers, authorities said.
The crash happened at 10.45am in crowded downtown Delray Beach, multiple news outlets reported.
The Brightline train was stopped on the tracks, its front destroyed, about a block away from the Delray Beach fire rescue truck, its ladder ripped off and strewn in the grass several yards away, The Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported.
The 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 injuries.
Emmanuel 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 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 crash.
“The 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,” Mr Amaral said.
Brightline officials did not immediately comment on the crash.
A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said it was still gathering information about the crash and had not decided yet whether it will investigate.
The NTSB is already investigating two crashes involving Brightline’s high-speed trains that killed three people early this year at the same crossing along the railroad’s route between Miami and Orlando.
More 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 United States.
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 deaths.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
