Shocking video showed the moment a speeding passenger train slammed into a Florida fire truck that drove past a warning gate onto the tracks, injuring 15 people, including three smoke eaters.
Video released by Brightline shows the view from the front of one of its trains as it raced down tracks in Delray Beach on Saturday — just for a fire truck to still slowly cross the tracks.
The truck appears to come to a virtual stop on the crossing, with the footage cutting out as the train slammed into it — almost completely tearing it apart, photos show
Images showed the train completely smashed up at the front as it came to a stop about a block after the crash.
The three injured firefighters were in stable condition in the hospital and the dozen hurt passengers were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, according to the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.
“Railroad safety is a community wide effort,” the rail company said alongside the footage, which showed the fire truck had passed a guardrail.
“For everyone’s safety, never drive around crossing gates when they are down.”
The fire truck had stopped at the crossing and waited for a freight train to go by before maneuvering around the lowered crossing arms, one person familiar with the incident said.
A passenger of the Brightline train described the sudden impact of the crash.
“We felt a hard brake and then an immediate violent impact. I was thrown into the table. Yeah, there was a lot of momentum,” Zach Thrasher, an Orlando resident, told CBS 12.
The Federal Railroad Administration will investigate the incident.
A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said they were still in the preliminary phases of gathering information about the crash and had not decided whether they would be investigating.
Brightline is an intercity high-speed train service between Miami and Orlando, according to its website.
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.
with Post wires
