Florida: Excessive-speed passenger practice collides with fireplace truck at crossing, 15 injured

Three firefighters and no less than a dozen passengers had been injured in a practice accident in Florida, US on Saturday. The accident occurred when a high-speed passenger practice collided with a hearth truck at a crossing at 10.45 am in crowded downtown Delray Seaside.

In response to media stories, the Brightline practice was stopped on the tracks after the collision. Its entrance was destroyed, a few block away from the Delray Seaside Hearth Rescue truck, its ladder ripped off and strewn within the grass a number of yards away.

12 individuals rescued and brought to the hospital

The Delray Seaside Hearth Rescue mentioned in a social media submit that three Delray Seaside firefighters had been in steady situation at a hospital.

Palm Seaside County Hearth Rescue took 12 individuals from the practice to the hospital with minor accidents.

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 window of their broken truck and pulling injured colleagues away from the tracks. Certainly one 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 components to the hearth truck caught within the entrance of the practice, but it surely break up the automobile proper in half. It break up the hearth truck proper in half, and the particles was in every single place,” Amaral mentioned.

Brightline officers didn’t instantly touch upon the crash. A spokesperson for the Nationwide Transportation Security Board mentioned it was nonetheless gathering details about the crash and had not determined but whether or not it’s going to examine.

The NTSB is already investigating two crashes involving Brightline’s high-speed trains that killed three individuals early this yr on the similar crossing alongside the railroad’s route between Miami and Orlando.

Greater than 100 individuals have died after being hit by trains since Brightline started operations in July 2017 — giving the railroad the worst dying fee 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 a substitute of ready for a practice to cross. Brightline has not been discovered to be at fault in these earlier deaths.

Railroad security has been a priority since a Norfolk Southern practice derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023, spilling poisonous chemical compounds that caught fireplace. Regulators urged the trade to enhance security and members of Congress proposed a package deal of reforms, however railroads haven’t made many main adjustments 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 individuals had been injured, and the native Chamber of Commerce constructing was broken.

(With AP inputs) 

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