A freight train collided with an SUV Saturday morning on Halbert Road in Lowndes County, injuring a mother and her four children.
Deputies with the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene at about 11:30 a.m. to find a family of five trapped in a partially crushed SUV on the train tracks.
All four children exited the vehicle safely and were taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle via ambulance with minor injuries.
The mother, whose legs were pinned by the vehicle’s dashboard, had to be extracted by emergency crews. Deputies spent about an hour freeing her from the wreckage, Sheriff Eddie Hawkins told The Dispatch on Saturday. She was airlifted to the UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. with non-life threatening injuries.
The SUV was traveling north on Halbert Road with it crossed into the path of an eastbound train, Hawkins wrote in a press release.
The impact pushed the vehicle approximately 200 feet along the tracks before the train could come to a full stop.
“The conductor said that as soon as the impact happened, he started pulling all the switches and letting the air out of the train to slow it down,” Hawkins told The Dispatch. “But there is no stopping a train. It has to stop on its own, and that’s why it took 200 feet down the tracks to get it to stop.”
Hawkins said he believes the driver did not see the train coming in time, and urged drivers to be cautious at all railroad crossings.
“Whenever you approach a crossing with an active train line, always stop and look both ways before proceeding,” Hawkins said in the press release. “Saving just 30 seconds or a minute is not worth the risk of trying to outrun a train. Don’t endanger yourself or others. We are thankful that no one was killed, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family that was injured.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
