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CLEVELAND, May 19 -- Train crews are often the forgotten victims of highway-rail grade crossing collisions, and such is the case with Amtrak's fatal accident near Round Rock, Texas, earlier this month.
According to preliminary reports from the BLE Safety Task Force, a 5-ton garbage truck pulled into the path of an oncoming Amtrak passenger train at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 5.
One of the locomotives involved in the Round Rock, Texas accident.
The truck driver was killed as the fast moving, 2-ton locomotive crushed his Mack truck like a pop can. Train crew members, on the other hand, were able to walk away from the derailed locomotive under their own power.
But the real damage caused by such collisions often lies below the surface, said BLE President Clarence Monin.
While he sustained only bumps and bruises on the outside, Locomotive Engineer Rudy P. Quesada is in the hospital today because of the damage caused to his insides.
Now a patient at the Breckenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas, the traumatized locomotive engineer suffers from memory loss and nightmares.
"He does not know or remember his own wife and children at this point," said BLE Safety Task Force Member Rodney Stutes.
President Monin said the Round Rock collision is typical of the trauma suffered by locomotive engineers and other crew members in the wake of fatal accidents.
"The locomotive engineer may recover physically from the crash," Monin said, "but mentally, he may carry scars that will haunt him for the rest of his life."
They tend to become "unseen victims" following such crashes as media attention focuses more on fatalities than on survivors.
"Our members have seen death," Monin said. "They have seen it on the faces of drivers as they realize the train is going to hit them. It's horrifying, and not something you forget overnight.
"The drivers may be 'victims' in the sense that they are killed in the collision. But train crew members are also victims in that they carry that face of horror in their minds."
Engineers often feel helpless when pedestrians or motor vehicles stop on the tracks ahead of their trains.
"There's a basic human instinct to help people, not to hurt them," Monin said. "You can't steer the train out of the way to avoid hitting a fellow human being, and you can't stop immediately. There's a feeling of helplessness that makes the hurting that much worse."
The Round Rock collision on Tuesday occurred at a highway-rail grade crossing that was protected by crossbucks only. Monin said an active warning device, such as a gates or flashing lights, may have helped prevent the fatality.
BLE Engineer David Butler was killed in a tragic off-duty collision in Small, Texas, on May 13.
Brother Butler and Conductor A.E. Carbajal had just left their Union Pacific train to be relieved under the Hours of Service Act when the tragedy occurred. Their taxi entered a crossing at the west end of the siding and was struck by a westbound train. Both men were killed, as was the van's driver, Rubin Dijols.
Brother Butler, 51, belonged to BLE Division 192 in El Paso, Texas. He was a member of the BLE for the past 24 years, initiating on Sept. 1, 1974. He would have celebrated his 52nd birthday this month. His father, D.D. Butler, was a Tucson engineer, and his son David is a UP engineer who belongs to BLE Division 22.
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