DUMONT, N.J. — A police officer was released from the hospital Saturday, one day after a freight train struck his patrol car and dragged it about 50 feet at the New Milford Avenue railroad crossing, the Bergen Record reported.
Patrolman Luke Totten suffered a broken collarbone. Veteran Patrolman Mike Foti, who screamed helplessly from nearby for Totten to leave the car, was traumatized by the collision, said Police Chief Warren Kaine.
Both are expected to recover and be back on the job shortly.
“It’s a miracle,” Kaine said. “God was watching over us.”
The collision occurred around 10 p.m. Friday on the CSX freight line, adjacent to Dumont High School.
Around 9:50 p.m., the officers passed the high school fields as they drove in their patrol car toward Washington Avenue.
Foti saw two people dressed in black and wearing masks walking on the school grounds, the chief said.
Foti, in the passenger seat, got out of the patrol car to investigate, the chief said. Totten, a former New York City police officer and a newcomer to Dumont who was being trained by Foti, pulled the car over.
Totten thought he had completely crossed the tracks, the chief said, but he had not. He, too, got out of the car, and as the patrolmen searched for the two figures, Kaine said, they heard the CSX freight train’s piercing whistle.
The southbound train, a 4,000-foot-long behemoth, was on its way from Selkirk, N.Y., to Kearny, said Robert Sullivan, a CSX spokesman. The initial account had the train heading to Buffalo.
Totten broke for the car, jumped in, started it, and tried to get it off the tracks, Kaine said. As the train bore down on the car, Foti yelled, but it was too late, the chief said.
The train’s cowcatcher struck the car’s rear end, spun it, and deposited it about 50 feet away, the chief said. Firefighters pried open the door to free Totten and sprayed foam to prevent an explosion at the car’s punctured gas tank.
The Police Department and CSX will investigate the incident to pinpoint the timing of the collision. Among the unanswered questions are when the train operator activated the brakes and whether the swinging gates were working.
Police don’t know the identities of the two mysterious figures at the site, the chief said, adding that Foti approached them just before the crash. There was no trace of them after the crash, Kaine said.
Employees from nearby stores and residents who live across from the high school said there is always a danger in the New Milford Avenue area. In 1994, a 16-year-old junior at Dumont High School was killed by a Conrail freight train as she tried to cross the tracks by foot. There were at least two subsequent accidents involving trains nearby.
Stacey Hallenbeck, an employee at Dumont D&D Flowers on West Shore Avenue, which runs parallel to the tracks, said she had a close call Monday at the New Milford Avenue crossing.
Hallenbeck said the crossing’s three gates went up even though a train was coming. The two cars in front of her crossed, she said, but she did not go because she saw the train.
Kaine said the gates at the nearby Madison Avenue crossing malfunctioned Wednesday.
Sullivan, of CSX, said the railroad would investigate.
Ron McMahon has lived in a house immediately next to the train tracks for 20 years. He no longer notices the whistles or the rumbling. On Friday, he noticed the flashers of emergency vehicles.
He said his two children, now grown, learned to be cautious at an early age.
“If the [crossing] gate came down and they were playing in the back yard,” McMahon said, “they would lean against the house.”