REDDICK, Ill. — Four railroad crewmen received minor injuries early today when the two freight trains they were aboard collided head-on at Reddick.
The names of the injured were not available by presstime today, but responding firemen said all were taken to Kankakee hospitals immediately following the 7:30 a.m. crack-up on a siding on the village’s west side.
Railroad officials on the scene refused all comment.
For paramedic Peggy Novy of Reddick, the wreck meant the workday would start way earlier than planned.
En route to her job as a Med-Care Ambulance paramedic near Joliet, she and her husband Cary, a captain on the Reddick Fire Department, had stopped on the Illinois 17 crossing as a westbound Norfolk Southern approached.
It was a front row seat for the slow-motion mishap about to unfold before their eyes.
“There was a lady standing out here on the ground with a radio and she was screaming for them to stop,” Peggy said of the slowly approaching Norfolk Southern train.
“The train was coming and she threw the wrong switch. Hit them head on,” said Novy.
As she watched, the Norfolk engines swung onto the already occupied siding, then collided head-on with the stopped Conrail freight.
The collision jammed nine engines together, twisting two off the track, one of them toppling on its side.
Another engine rode up over the nose of another. No cars derailed, including Conrail cars said to be hauling hazardous materials, noted Mrs. Novy.
“It was quite a crash. I dove off and went running down to check for victims. Cary went to call the fire department.
The first rescuer to arrived at the toppled engines, Mrs. Novy climbed into the cab to check the conditions of crewmen momentarily trapped inside.
“Nobody was hurt bad, thank God.”
Mrs. Novy said a Conrail trainmen suffered glass fragments in his eye but was able to walk from the scene.
She attended to one crewman complaining of back injuries and monitored the injured until backup fire/rescue teams began to arrive on the scene.
“Thank God I had my gloves with me,” she said of the protective medical gloves ambulance crews carry as a matter of routine. “I grabbed them and took off running through the corn.
“It was scary because you have everything leaking and spraying and smoking and you don’t know if it’s going to blow up or catch on fire.
“But nothing really burned. They had diesel fuel leaking but they got foam on it.”
Mrs. Novy achieved paramedic status just four months ago.
The crossing has been the scene of other rail mishaps. Two years ago, Bonfield’s Grant Turner died when his truck was struck at the crossing. Many of the arriving firefighters, including Mrs. Novy, were among the fire-rescue teams arriving that day as well.
Assistant Reddick Fire Chief Mike Perry said around 30 fire/rescue personnel from area departments responded to the scene. Besides Reddick, contributing agencies included South Wilmington, Campus, Dwight, Reddick, Herscher and Gardner.
No firefighters were injured.
State police said the Federal Railroad Administration is investigating the incident and all additional information would come from its Washington offices.