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A dozen passengers and three firefighters sustained injuries after a passenger train collided with a fire truck.
The incident occurred around 10:45 a.m. on Saturday in Delray Beach, Florida.
“According to Delray Beach Fire Rescue, at around 10:45 a.m. an aerial apparatus ladder firetruck was crossing the FEC tracks near the intersection of SE 1st Street when it was struck by a Brightline train,” WPTV reports.
“Three Delray Beach firefighters were transported to a local hospital, where they remain in stable condition. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue provided assistance, transporting 12 individuals from the train to the hospital with minor injuries,” Delray Beach Fire Rescue said in a statement posted to Facebook.
“An active investigation into the cause of the collision is currently underway by Delray Beach Police Department, officials from Brightline, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB),” it added.
“From the Brightline Safety and Security Team: Railroad safety is a community wide effort. For everyone’s safety, never drive around crossing gates when they are down,” Brightline wrote.
WATCH:
From the Brightline Safety and Security Team: Railroad safety is a community wide effort. For everyone’s safety, never drive around crossing gates when they are down. pic.twitter.com/6TSeHHOuyq
— Brightline (@GoBrightline) December 29, 2024
WPTV reports:
According to Matt Saraceni, Sergeant of the Delray Beach Police Traffic Homicide Unit, three firefighters were hospitalized with injuries. Two of the firefighters were transported as trauma alerts to Delray Beach Medical Center and all are in stable condition.
12 Brightline passengers were transported to the hospital with minor injuries.
“At this point all that information is being investigated through a multi-agency, multi-partner investigative process,” said Delray Beach Fire Chief Ronald Martin.
A Brightline train collided with a fire truck in Delray Beach, sending three firefighters and several train passengers to the hospital. https://t.co/TXd2rLzLF1
— The Palm Beach Post (@pbpost) December 29, 2024
From the Associated Press:
Video of the collision shows the fire truck driving around cars stopped at the crossing with its lights flashing to cross the double tracks.
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 front 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,” Amaral said.
A Brightline safety officer said the entire community is involved in ensuring railroad safety and drivers should never go around closed gates.
The Federal Railroad Administration will investigate. A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said in the afternoon that it was still gathering information about the crash and had not decided yet whether to 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 in Melbourne along the railroad’s route between Miami and Orlando.