(The following story by Nicholas Grudin was published in the January 23 issue of the Los Angeles Daily News.)
GLENDALE, Calif. — A 53-year-old Sunland woman whose Jeep stalled in the path of an Amtrak train leaped to safety Thursday only seconds before the train hit, knocking the SUV about 60 feet into air.
Neither the unidentified driver nor any of the 300 people aboard the passenger train were injured, but the woman’s sport-utility vehicle was demolished, police said.
“My heart stopped because I thought there was someone in the car,” said Abe Johnson, an employee of nearby Glendale Electronics. “Nobody would’ve survived that.”
The incident marked the second train vs. auto collision in the Burbank-Glendale area this month. Two people were killed and more than 30 others injured Jan. 6, in the collision of a Metrolink train and a stake-bed truck.
Thursday’s collision occurred about 3:15 p.m. at Doran Street and the Union Pacific tracks.
Glendale Police Department spokesman Kirk Palmer said a red 1992 Jeep Cherokee was westbound on Doran when it stalled between the lowered railroad crossing arms. An Amtrak commuter train from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo approached at about 80 mph, he said.
As the driver leaped to safety, the train slowed to about 50 mph before the impact, witnesses said.
“We’re very lucky not to have a serious injury here,” Palmer said.
Burbank police are continuing to investigate the Jan. 6 crash, which they said was caused when Jacek Wysocki of Van Nuys drove his truck through or around the crossing gates near Buena Vista Street and San Fernando Road in Burbank.
He was killed instantly, and a 76-year-old woman, Grace Kirkness of Santa Clarita, died Tuesday of what authorities said were injuries sustained in that crash. Also injured in the collision was Jennifer Kilpatrick, a Santa Clarita attorney who remains paralyzed from the chest down.
The Daily News reported Tuesday that nearly as many people have died on the two Metrolink lines running through the San Fernando Valley as on the rest of the five-county system.
Of Metrolink crashes in the Valley region, eight pedestrians have died in the Burbank-Glendale region. Also, an additional car-train crash has occurred since the service began.
Various Valley intersections regularly make Metrolink’s list of the top five areas targeted for special public-safety education efforts.