This inncident hapened 15 minutes away from where i live. you can be sure he is glad that call wasn’t in my fire house’s first due area because i would have been there and we will leave it at that…Just Kidding[;)]
http://www.sykesvillefire.org/index.cfm?fs=news.newsView&News_ID=40
Would have been nice if daddy had kept the reins a little tighter maybe…
No Comment!
If it had been more than 20 feet, it could have qualififed for a Honorable Mention for the Darwin Awards. But alas, he was just being stoopid
An incredibly, painful lesson.
The teen years can be a trying time for teens and parents. I was considered a “good kid”, yet I know I pulled a couple of stupid whoppers myself, including trespassing at night in a rail yard!
I wonder though what kind of parents this kid has. Will they blame CSX and sue them? Or will they really accept the responsibility?
It would be great if the family went on national t.v, accepted responsibility and warned other teens to stay off of railroad tracks and trestles. Years back here in Tampa, a young boy trapped on a trestle had his legs cut off by a Seboard Coast Line freight train. He survived. Horrible tragedy!
That kid and his family owe a big debt of gratitude to the rescue team. These stories always bring out cries of “stupid kid,” “where are the parents,” and finally “greedy lawyers,” but the emergency services crew that got him out of there gets forgotten. Well, all in a day’s work for them, huh?
Yeah I did a few “boneheaded” stunts myself as a kid. Where I grew up there was a washed out railroad section with nothing but rail, a few ties and about a 15 foot drop. Well I tried to shimmy across the tracks to reach the washed out section of the bridge over the river. When I reached one of those mid-air ties, I stood up stradling it. It gave way. You can imagine where I landed on the rail. Luckily I didn’t fall into the pit, because I think it was full of snakes! [B)]
I’m glad to see there isn’t a flood of “stupid kid” and “stupid parents” replies like I’ve sometimes seen. I’ll wager that none of the parents of these injured/killed kids ever had so much as a passing interest in - or exposure to - trains, so they would be less aware of the potential danger. My own son is sick of my repeated warnings (“I know Dad I know, stop being so paranoid!!”). Also, group-think/peer pressure often trumps caution where teens are concerned (like Antonio and Grif, I’ve been there!).
Let’s try not to add to the woes of these kids’ unfortunate parents by blasting their competence.
Maybe we should each ask ourselves: “Am I doing my part to spread the “train safety” message when guests visit my layout or talk about model RR’ing?”
[xx(] Tisk, tisk, tisk [xx(]
What are people thinking when they hang on railroad bridges? Do they think they can pull a movie stunt, and just narrowly escape the impending train? He should definitely know better after this.
I stroll the tracks every so often, but I’m absolutely against going across the bridges.
I agree 100% with Ken, we should encourage railroad safety whenever we spread the hobby.
~[8]~ TrainFreak409 ~[8]~
As any of us who have, or have had teenagers can testify, teenagers think they’re immortal. They’ll do things that would make us older (and wiser?) adults shudder. I’ve taken my oldest granddaughter railfanning with me and I take great pains to teach her safety around railways and respect for the railway’s private property. I’ll do the same for the other grandkids when they’re old enough. All we can do is educate them.
I am just a ‘good kid’ then. Last year, I was staring at CP Rail SD40 #5552, and I really wanted to go and stand by it, and write down a phone # that I knew was on the side, as I really wanted a numberboard or two from it.
Unfortunately, it was on the other side of 4 yard tracks, the alyth yard diesel shop lead, and the CPR main. I stayed my ground, and never got a numberboard.
Matthew
Stupid kid. He probably last a bet. Even if he did, that’s no excuse for hanging around the tracks at 2 in the morning.[:(][:(][:(]
Been there, done it, wore the t-shirt, starred in the video, as a firefighter of course. Kids will never cease to amaze me with the crazy and most times stupid things they will do. I remember early in my career as a firefighter/paramedic we had one summer in which the local teens used to play hang-on at night on with the freights that ran through our city. What these half baked morons would do was see who could grab onto the last car and see who could hold on the longest as they “skied” behind the train. A few times, they really got stupid and tried to grab onto the side of a car. We had 5 kids get hurt that summer “playing” with the trains. The injuries ranged from cuts and broken bones up to amputations of limbs from falling under the wheels to one poor kid who was literally cut in half by a freight after trying to grab onto a chain hanging off a flatbed and slipping under. After this kid was killed, the rest of them stopped playing on the tracks and moved on to bigger and more thrilling things.
I want to say that I agree with Ken here. Do I feel sorry for the kid? Yes, somewhat but more for the parents of the injured kid. You see, we can look at this and say it was a stupid thing to do, but do we really know what went on in that kids mind at the time. Sure he shouldn’t have been on that bridge, but now he is paying the price for it and I do feel bad that he has to suffer the pain from it. I can’t and will not pass judgement on the parents, but will say that they are probabley suffering more then the kid is from this. I’ll bet that we all did somethings in our youth that are locked away in a closet that were just as bad or “stupid”, but we got away with a clean bill of health from it. My kids are all grown now and giving us grandkids to worry about. I sometimes look back and wonder if and what my kids did that was “stupid”, but then I really don’t want to know. Now, was this really a railroad related accident? My answer is yes, in that it happen on a railroad trestle, but it could have happened from other places as well. Also this is not ment to take away anything from railroad safety as railroads, even if they are abandoned, have extreme dangers. Ken
As my Father once said (after ripping out his hernia repair pulling a 300 lb. roller over to his tractor at age 86), “We all do stupid things, son! But usually we don’t get caught.”
I did just as many stupid things when I was their age but “didn’t get caught”!
The kid is VERY fortunate that was all he had to deal with. If that was me when I was a kid, I would have rather dealt with the train than MY DAD!!! My Grandfather uesd to say this:“Hmmm,A hard head makes a soft A–” I’m glad he is okay. And yes, I agree that we should teach RxR safety to our kids.