Metrolink train strikes truck in Southern California - ABC15 Arizona
LOS ANGELES - A commuter train bound for Los Angeles derailed before dawn Tuesday in a fiery collision with an abandoned commercial pickup after the truck's driver took a wrong turn and got stuck on the tracks. Everything was flying," said passenger Joel Bingham. "A brush of death definitely came over me. ". Lives were likely saved by passenger cars designed to absorb a crash. Police found the disoriented driver of the demolished Ford F-450 pickup 1. 6 miles from the crossing 45 minutes after the crash, said Jason Benites, an assistant chief of the Oxnard Police Department. That driver, Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez, 54, of Yuma, Arizona, was briefly hospitalized then arrested Tuesday afternoon on suspicion of felony hit-and-run, Benites said. Sanchez-Ramirez, who delivers produce, was driving a pickup with an empty bed pulling a trailer with some welding equipment in it. He told police he tried to turn right at an intersection but turned prematurely and his truck got stuck straddling... Police said they tested Sanchez-Ramirez for drugs and alcohol but they would not discuss the results. The train, the first of the morning on the Ventura route, had just left its second stop of Oxnard on its way to downtown Los Angeles, about 65 miles away, when it struck the truck around 5:45 a. m. There were 48 passengers aboard and three crew... Source: www.abc15.com
