The students at Brillion High School and the greater Calumet County community were reportedly on pins and needles after hearing a Chevy Impala carrying five teenagers was hit by a Canadian National Railway train on East River Road south of Fischer Road.
Four of the Impala’s occupants were brothers and all of them were 18 years of age or younger. The driver and an occupant suffered leg injuries, one occupant suffered an internal injury, another suffered a head injury, and another had body bruises, according to Fox11online.com. Given the damage done to the Impala, it is amazing none of these teens were killed.
The occupant with the head injury should be monitored closely. Head injuries that appear mild may in fact be traumatic brain injuries; the symptoms may just not appear right away and could surface in the coming days.
A somewhat ironic aspect of this car-train wreck is that Canadian National Railway are in the midst of Rail Safety Week where the rail company declared “CN is determined to end the tragic loss of life and debilitating injuries – most of them completely avoidable,” according to their own web site.
How did this car-train wreck happen? The details of this rail crossing accident haven’t been released yet. Early reports indicate the driver of the Impala did not see the train and the railroad crossing where the collision occurred does not have any lights or crossing signals.
“We don’t have any indication that the driver saw the train, but we’ve only been able to talk to one of the occupants of the car,” said Captain Paul Rusch of the Calumet County Sheriff’s Department.
There have been 46 railroad crossing crashes and two deaths in the state last year, 68 train crashes and one death in 2008, along with 59 train wrecks and three lives lost in 2007, according to htrnews.com.