Whoa, this is really scary. I know the driver of the
car. She just moved out there recently. What a
bizzare way to find out about what happened to someone
for me.
Bryan Howell
tubaman21@yahoo.com
--- Kenneth H Thompson <KTHOMPSON4@wi.rr.com> wrote:
> Not exactly Q related but something interesting from
> Galesburg.
>
> K. Thompson
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <davidknelson@northwesternmutual.com>
> To: <kschmidt626@tds.net>; <kthompson4@wi.rr.com>
> Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 4:26 PM
> Subject: galesburg - Where we did our Saturday night
> railfanning one year
>
>
> Car flips after turn is missed
> No injuries in accident
> July 24, 2003
> GALESBURG - A 16-year-old Galesburg girl missed
> making a turn off Water
> Street Wednesday night and found herself driving
> next to the Burlington
> Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks near Broad Street
> as a freight train
> approached, according to witnesses.
> The vehicle she was driving flipped over when she
> attempted to get away
> from the south BNSF tracks. Moments later, a train
> traveling on the
> north tracks passed the scene.
> There were no injuries.
> Kelli S. Ralston, 16, 1533 Haynor St., and her three
> passengers, two
> 16-year-old Galesburg boys and a 17-year-old Alexis
> boy, escaped
> unharmed.
> According to police reports, Ralston was traveling
> west on Water
> Street, approaching Broad Street. She drove through
> the intersection
> and continued to drive west. When the street ended
> the vehicle was
> between the railroad tracks and the abandoned
> depot's concrete
> platform. She tried to turn onto the concrete, but
> because of the
> height difference from the gravel to the concrete,
> the car rolled over
> onto the passenger's side and came to rest on its
> top.
> Two train watchers from near Chicago saw the
> accident unfold in front
> of them just after 10 p.m.
> Duane Tuma, 46, Carpentersville, and Joe DiBella,
> 54, Hoffman Estates,
> were sitting in their Dodge pickup in the old Santa
> Fe Depot parking
> lot, just west of North Broad Street and on the
> south side of the
> BNSF's Santa Fe mainline tracks.
> Tuma said they were monitoring a scanner and knew a
> westbound train was
> heading their way, running on the northern set of
> tracks.
> "Suddenly we saw this car riding the rails,
> sparking," Tuma said. The
> car became airborne, flipped over and landed on its
> top, about 100 feet
> west of where Tuma and DiBella sat watching.
> "I was on the phone talking with my wife and I told
> her 'I've got to
> hang up. There's been an accident,'" DiBella said.
> He used his cell
> phone to call 911.
> When the car stopped, the occupants "came running
> out," DiBella said.
> "I've never seen anything like it ... just in the
> movies, he said.
> DiBella said the car involved in the accident was
> going from east to
> west. He said he believed the driver panicked when
> the crossing gates
> at North Broad Street started to lower and drove
> ahead.
> As soon as the car stopped, both men got out of
> their truck and ran to
> see if they could help the occupants of the car.
> Debbie Marty, 296 N. Pleasant Ave., mother of Cole
> Marty, one of the
> passengers in the car, said at the scene her son
> confirmed DiBella's
> theory. The driver went straight ahead, across Broad
> Street, apparently
> thinking what was in front of her was a road, Marty
> said.
> Cole Marty said all he remembered was riding upside
> down and being on
> the roof of the car. "I thought the train was going
> to hit us," he
> said.
> Both Tuma and DiBella said it was obvious to them
> that the engineer of
> the westbound train, running on the northernmost set
> of tracks, was
> attempting to slow as the accident unfolded. "He did
> a helluva job,"
> Tuma said.
> Tuma said he and DiBella had been in Galesburg for
> Railroad Days, had a
> couple of days off and decided to come back to watch
> trains. They
> arrived about 5 a.m. Tuesday.
> Tuma's 16-year-old son watched the accident unfold
> from a room on the
> sixth floor of the Ramada Inn, 29 Public Square. He
> told his father he
> called 911, and the operator said the accident
> already had been
> reported.
> The occupants of the car declined to be taken from
> the scene by
> ambulance.
> The car's air bags did not deploy. A Galesburg
> firefighter at the scene
> said the sensors are located in the front of the
> vehicle and apparently
> did not register enough force to trigger the air
> bags.
> Ralston was ticketed for disobeying a stop sign. Ð
> from reports by Editor Emeritus Robert F. Harrison
> and staff writer
> Tammy Bould.
>
>
>
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