Los Angeles: A Los Angeles-bound commuter train slammed into a tractor trailer stopped on the tracks in Oxnard, California during the morning rush hour on Tuesday, injuring 51 people, some seriously, authorities said. The truck driver was taken into custody several miles away after fleeing on foot, Oxnard City Fire Department spokesman Joe Garces said. Garces said it was not yet clear if the driver would face charges.
The fiery crash just before 6 am, local time, in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, overturned at least three double-decker Metrolink rail cars. Two others derailed but remained upright. The force of the collision smashed the truck apart and local television showed burned-out chunks smoldering hours later.
Authorities said the train, which had been traveling at 79 miles per hour, had anticipated the impact from some distance and had initiated emergency protocols before hitting the truck. There were no fatalities but 28 people were taken to six hospitals, some with significant head, neck and back traumas or broken bones, Emergency Medical Services administrator Steve Carroll told reporters. Another 23 people were treated at the scene, he said.
A spokeswoman for Ventura County Medical Center said the hospital had received nine train passengers and that three were listed in critical condition. Six others were in stable condition, she said. Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center received six patients with minor injuries such as back, leg or shoulder pain, said Kris Carraway, the hospital's vice president of public relations. She said all would likely be released on Tuesday. St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital in nearby Camarillo was treating two patients for minor injuries, a spokeswoman said.
The incident caused significant delays to Metrolink lines in Ventura County, forcing commuters onto buses. Oxnard is an affluent coastal city of some 200,000 about 45 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The US National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter that it was sending a team to the scene. The crash came three weeks after a Metro-North commuter train in New York struck a car at a railroad crossing and derailed in a fiery accident that killed six people in the area's worst rail crash in decades.
In 2008, a crowded Metrolink commuter train plowed into a Union Pacific locomotive in Chatsworth, California, killing 25 people and injuring 135 in an accident officials blamed on the commuter train engineer's failure to stop at a red light. And in 2005 a Metrolink train struck a sport utility vehicle parked on the tracks in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, killing 11 people and injuring 180 others.
The driver of the SUV was convicted of first-degree murder in connection with that crash and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors said he was bent on suicide but changed his mind at the last minute and could not get his vehicle off the tracks.
