Yesterday afternoon in DeKalb, IL an auto parts store was holding a “Monster Truck” car crushing demo and during one of the “runs” the truck apparently went out of control, injured several people seriously, went throuhg a McDonalds parking lot, through a fence and came to rest on one of hte U.P. mainline tracks that run from Chicago through DeKalb, Rochelle and west into Iowa.
That monster truck shouldn’t have any problem crossing the tracks just about anywhere (whether it should or not is a different question).
On the other hand, what the heck is going on in the foreground?
I saw that on the news last night. Monster truck show in DeKalb, Il. Driver was doing an exposition at the old station and lost control, sending 2 or 3 people to the hospital.
What you are looking at is the view of the truck’s rear end after it had crashed through the McDonalds fence and went across one mainline track and came to rest on the other. The people in the foreground are among those spectators injured when the truck apparently lost control.
Gee, do you think the railroad won’t be named in the lawsuit? [:(!]
Hopefully, the injuries were all minor.
Hmmmmmmmmm what part of the statement “seriously injured several people” was not clear in the original post[?][%-)]
In fairness to tree68, my original post (for some reason) did not include my description of the incident but only the picture and I needed to go in and edit the post, adding the description and so all tree68 saw originally was the photo, nothing else.
After the dragster incident, you think folks would have learned that you would want some sort of barrier between you and hi performance vehicles during a demo.
Last report from the daily-chronicle is that everybody should be OK. Only two of the 10 hit are still in the hospital (St. Anthoney in Rockford, IL), no injuries are life threatening. I was wondering when I saw the truck sitting there at lunch time yesterday. I figured it was just a sitting display, 6th street is a one-way street, its short and narrow.
Now it makes the town look like a bunch of hicks, at least based on comments left on various news sites.[B)]
[
] [] [#oops] My bad, Sorry Tree68, I should not have jumped to a conclusion so quickly. In the future I will let someone else jump in and make a [D)] of themselves 1st.
Hope you all have a good weekend.
Jared
I know right where that happened. The McDonalds is right across the street from the old CNW depot and there was a wooden fence separating the McDonalds from the UP mainline. Looks as if the truck crashed through the fence and came to a rest on main two. Wonder what UP thought about a monster truck blocking their mainline. I bet they weren’t too pleased by it. I also think they should also block part of the area off where people can’t get in the way of the monster truck. I’m sure the city learned a lession and will hopefully do that for now on.
City of DeKalb had little to do with it - but NAPA Auto Parts and their insurers are going to red-tag that monster, its driver, and the whole concept of staging this type of show without a proper safety zone. Good to hear only 2 remain in the hospital. Hopefully they recover quickly.
Railroad property and McDonald’s fence just happened to be in the path of the out-of-control truck. They had nothing to do with the handling or path of the MONSTER.
Instead of speculating - view the well-presented text, photos, audio, and video here:
http://www.daily-chronicle.com/articles/2007/08/10/news/news02.txt
I am thinking that there won’t be monster truck there again for a while as Route 38 was shut down, and I’m sure the city and UP weren’t too thrilled with this runaway monster truck.
Ever see a tape of a World Rally Championship event in Europe or South America? Fans line the route right at the edge of the road. And these are cars going around turns on mountain and forest roads at insane speeds and just barely in control. They make the fans at Monster Truck events look like paragons of caution.
Jack