A 19-year-old woman was killed and a man suffered major head
injuries when the man tried to outrun a commuter train at the San
Pedro Avenue crossing Monday evening.
By Matt King and Nathan Mixter Staff Writers
Morgan Hill – A 19-year-old woman was killed and a man suffered major head injuries when the man tried to outrun a commuter train at the San Pedro Avenue crossing Monday evening.
The white pickup the man was driving was torn in two by the train. The battered cab, its windshield smashed and passenger door gnarled and shredded from the frame, lay a few feet from the intersection. The truck bed was pushed about 150 feet down the rails.
According to Cmdr. Joe Sampson of the Morgan Hill Police Department, the couple was attempting to cross the tracks at Tennant Avenue when the protective gates came down.
The man, and the driver of another vehicle, headed north along Railroad Avenue in an effort to beat a northbound train to the San Pedro crossing, just before 7pm.
When the San Pedro gates closed, the driver of the other vehicle stopped. The critically injured man honked at the other vehicle and then tried to maneuver through the closed gates.
The other driver rolled down his window and yelled at the man. The driver of the demolished pickup apparently didn’t realize that there was also a southbound train speeding toward the intersection.
“The driver was just trying to beat the train,” Sampson said, “and unfortunately he was unable to do so.”
The driver was flown to Regional Medical Center in San Jose, where he was reported to be in critical condition at press time.
Sampson’s account was based on eyewitness reports. The witnesses were not available for comment.
There were about 100 passengers on the train. They were stranded for two hours before they were bussed from the scene. Passengers said they didn’t immediately know what had happened.
“There was a big crash,” said Steve Green, who was headed home to Los Banos. “There was a lot of debris. It sounded like we hit a trash can. We came to a stop, then all the emergency lights came on.”
Caltrain officials could not be reached at press time.
Sampson said the last train fatality in Morgan Hill was about two years ago, when a transient wandered on the tracks near Railroad and Old Railroad avenues. Last year, a man was struck and killed by a Union Pacific train in San Martin.
