Teen apparently tried to jump across tracks in front of an
oncoming train
Morgan Hill – Victor Adrian Sandoval, an 18-year-old Morgan Hill man, was killed as he attempted to jump across railroad tracks in front of an oncoming freight train, police said.
Sandoval was with friends near the skate park that backs up to the station parking lot on the east side of the tracks Wednesday night and apparently decided to cross in front of the train toward downtown Morgan Hill despite the warning signals at the nearby pedestrian crosswalk, MHPD Cmdr. Joe Sampson said.
As Sandoval leaped, the front of the train caught his trailing leg, causing him to spin back toward the train, colliding with the train, Sampson said.
The train engineer called police to report the train had struck a juvenile at 10:11pm.
“One thing our officers would tell people who think about trying to beat a train, either by driving around the crossing guards or jumping the tracks, is that it generally leads to a fatal situation,” he said. “It is the victim that exercises poor judgment. There is no judgment issue with on the part of the train or the conductor; the train is just driving straight through. It’s very simple, they need to understand they are not invincible.”
Sampson said MHPD officers first were called to a report of a fight near the tracks and saw several people running from the area when they arrived. There were also a group of people who appeared to have been drinking. Officers then learned that a pedestrian was struck by a train and cordoned off the scene. They found Sandoval’s body lying on the west side of the tracks inside the fenced area next to the small parking lot on the Depot Street side of the tracks.
Just before the call from the train conductor, MHPD dispatchers received a call about a fight between juveniles in the area, but Sampson said initial investigations show there was no fight, just a group of people drinking together at the skate park.
“They were loud, I’m sure, but we don’t believe they were fighting,” he said. “We don’t get a lot of calls out there, we haven’t had a lot of enforcement action or issues at night, but I would imagine, since there’s really no nearby homes and it’s a little bit dark, that teens might tend to gravitate there.”
Some of the officers who saw people running from the scene on Second Street, followed the suspects, because they appeared to be intoxicated, yelling and punching structures. Sampson said they were acting out due to grief over Sandoval’s death, but when a 16-year-old male tried to fight officers attempting to calm him down, he was arrested but later released to a parent.
The investigation is continuing, Sampson said, and the Union Pacific Railroad Police will be conducting a concurrent investigation.
MHPD Sgt. David Swing said Thursday that there is no indication that Sandoval’s death was a suicide.
“We have talked to three people who were present at the scene and others who knew him, and there was no indication of depression or despondency,” Swing said. “It looks like an unfortunate accident brought on by alcohol … There was a recently broken bottle of alcohol in the parking lot and another unfinished one found laying on the tracks.”
The toxicology reports are not complete, Swing said, so there is no proof Sandoval was impaired.
“We don’t know for sure if in fact Mr. Sandoval was drinking,” Swing said, “but the people there at the scene that he was associating with had been drinking. It seems to be an unfortunate accident caused by alcohol and the invincible spirit that many teenagers have.”
The last fatal train accident in Morgan Hill was in January of this year, when 18-year-old Jackie Gamboa was thrown from a pickup driven by her boyfriend, Nathan Schrock, who tried to beat an Amtrak train and drove around the crossing guards. The train struck the pickup, and Gamboa was killed.
Fatal accidents often have an impact on the community, particularly when teens and young adults are involved, Sampson said.
“These kinds of situations are always difficult to put into words, the impact not only on the family and friends, but also the officers and rescue personnel that respond and the larger community,” he said. “It’s very hard to deal with these deaths of young people.”
A MHPD chaplain responded to the scene to offer assistance to witnesses and officers alike, and Sampson said that in this kind of situation, the department holds a critical incident stress debriefing within 72 hours. A chaplain is again available, as well as a police psychologist to help officers walk through the emotions of the events.
