AUSTIN - The reigning Miss Deaf Texas died Monday afternoon after being struck by a train, officials said.
Tara Rose McAvoy, 18, was walking near railroad tracks when she was struck by a Union Pacific train (trespassing eh?), authorities said. A witness told Austin television station KTBC the train sounded its horn right up until the accident occurred.
McAvoy, who had been deaf since birth, won the state title in June and represented the state “with dignity and pride,” state pageant director Laura Loeb-Hill told The Associated Press via e-mail Monday night.
McAvoy was to represent Texas at the Miss Deaf America pageant this summer, Loeb-Hill said.
McAvoy graduated last year from the Texas School for the Deaf, attended Austin Community College and then started at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., in January, but had returned to Texas, Loeb-Hill said.
To state the obvious: NOBODY should be walking along an active rail line. Plenty of people with perfectly fine hearing manage to get hit by trains…No doubt the media will play this up for it’s “irony”…
Certainly a loss - whether she was trespassing or not (and it appears she was). Assuming the best - that she just wasn’t aware that she shouldn’t have been there - this can serve as a teaching tool. Hopefully none of the “trains are terrible” groups will get hold of it…
I was trackside with the local trainmaster this past weekend, watching a special movement. While we were waiting for it to arrive a youngster tooled by on his four-wheeler. The trainmaster called him over and told him he was trespassing - something he said he didn’t realize. And I believe him. All you have to do is look down the ROW to see the ATV tracks running alongside the rails…
It is dangerous enough for a hearing person around railroad tracks.Someone who is deaf should be extra careful. NO ONE should be trespassing on railroad property.A railroad is a very dangerous environment.Sometimes even employees are injured or killed .This was an unfortunate event that was preventable and never should have happened.
On one hand we discuss how dumb she must have been and trespassing etc. then on the other hand we as a hobby group get upset when someone tells us we cant take a picture of a train and are told to leave the property.
I certainly hope we can show a little bit of class and dignity for an unfortunate death and then show a little respect and safety for a very dangerous industry.
Boy,
Sure am glad she wasn’t your sister…must be a real pain in the butt being as perfect as you are…
By the way, I met her, she did a presentation on ASL to my daughters advanced science class as a requirement in one of her classes…I would rather have met her, and her “defect”, once in my life rather than to have ever known of you at all…
Mistakes in life have consequences, for some mistakes the consequences are much greater than they are for other. She made a fatal mistake, in the game of life…she lost.
According to the local paper (The Austin American-Statesman), she was not on the track when she was hit. My best guess is that she was probably walking on the right-of-way next to the tracks, but close enough to the tracks to be hit. In any event, it is always a tragedy when somebody that young gets hurt or killed. As for the self-righteous folks who say that she “had it coming” or other such nonsense, I can remember some really boneheaded stunts that I pulled at that age. Actually, I suspect that most of us can remember doing things at that age that just thinking about doing the same thing now would be enough to cause us to have a heart attack. There is an old native American saying about judging somebody before you have walked a mile in their moccasins that applies here, or maybe remembering what you did at age eighteen.
My condolences to her family, her friends at the Texas School for the Deaf and all her other friends.
Thanks. It is good you responded to this properly.
I happen to be deaf. Thinking about things how we use our sense of feel thru the feet and gut to pick up very large and heavy machinery like railroads nearby. I am thinking there is more to the story because she may have been distracted or otherwise on the tracks for some specific reason.
All the horn blowing probably aint gonna save her anyways. It’s done, over the best thing to do is warn our children and family NOT to get near the railroad because THEY might be next. Hosing off hamburger is not something you want to have to do.
It’s too bad. But someone who has been recognized as a Celeb or otherwise part of something larger than themselves are not LOSERS.
Usually when someone dies on the tracks we laugh it off as one less stupid person or give out awards about how we thin out the bad genes etc etc etc…
In this case I think it is a loss.
One other thing. Your shot about her not being able to read is a slap in the faces of all deaf who uses a visual language such as American Sign Language or English to communicate virtually everything anyone can vocally convey so shove that reading part into your firebox.
In most cases where kids, or even young adults, get hit while playing on the tracks the blame should go to the parents and / or the educational system for failing to educate the young of the dangers of railroad tracks.
[banghead]
Then again I also am a firm believer in people takeing responseability for there own actions which seems to be becomeing a truely lost art.
[banghead]
I know some one who is profoundly deaf. He can “feel” a train coming through his feet, so if he can “feel a train coming”, why not the young lady in Texas? There’s the rub, perhaps she was so deaf that she could not even feel the ground shake as the train approached her. To suggest that she may have been suicidal is not fair to her loved ones and friends and should not be discussed unless she left a note or had been depressed lately. To reiterate, A deaf person I know can tell when a train is approaching. He has, however tried to notice when a train is approaching, some thing most people do not learn to do whether they have reasonable hearing or are deaf.