DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — A high-speed passenger prepare collided with a hearth truck at a crossing Saturday morning in Florida, injuring three firefighters and no less than a dozen prepare passengers, authorities stated.
The crash occurred at 10:45 a.m. in crowded downtown Delray Beach, a number of information retailers reported. The Brightline prepare was stopped on the tracks, its entrance destroyed, a couple of block away from the Delray Beach Fire Rescue truck, its ladder ripped off and strewn within the grass a number of yards away, The Sun-Sentinel reported.
The Delray Beach Fire Rescue stated in a social media put up that three Delray Beach firefighters have been in steady situation at a hospital. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue took 12 folks from the prepare to the hospital with minor accidents.
Emmanuel Amaral rushed to the scene on his golf cart after listening to a loud crash and screeching prepare 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. One of their helmets got here to relaxation a number of hundred toes away from the crash.
“The entrance of that prepare is totally smashed, and there was even a few of the components to the hearth truck caught within the entrance of the prepare, however it break up the automobile proper in half. It break up the hearth truck proper in half, and the particles was in all places,” Amaral stated.
Brightline officers didn’t instantly touch upon the crash.
A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board stated it was nonetheless gathering details about the crash and had not determined but whether or not it should examine.
The NTSB is already investigating two crashes involving Brightline’s high-speed trains that killed three folks early this 12 months on the identical crossing alongside the railroad’s route between Miami and Orlando.
More than 100 folks have died after being hit by trains since Brightline started operations in July 2017 — giving the railroad the worst demise fee within the nation. But most of these deaths have been both suicides, pedestrians who tried to run throughout the tracks forward of a prepare or drivers who went round crossing gates as a substitute of ready for a prepare 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 prepare 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 prepare have been killed after it collided with a semitrailer truck that was blocking a crossing within the small West Texas city of Pecos. Three different folks have been injured, and the native Chamber of Commerce constructing was broken.
Associated Press writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, Chevel Johnson in New Orleans and Julie Walker in New York contributed.
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