Charges sought in trestle incident

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad wants to prosecute three youths on four-wheelers who were nearly hit by a train Sunday on the Coram trestle.

"I can't convey to you what it does to somebody involved" in an event like that, Whitefish trainmaster Lane Ross told a group of people in Hungry Horse on Wednesday night.

He described the train coming around the corner into Coram at 50 miles per hour. Recording devices similar to black-box data recorders on airplanes tell the mechanical side of the event.

But the real story is in the human toll, Ross said.

The engineer saw two four-wheelers on the bridge.

"He knows they're not going to make it," Ross said.

The two ATVs collided in their haste to try to beat the train off the bridge. One edged up against the side of the trestle. The other was hit by the train, flipped, and the stricken engineer saw "two, what he thought were little girls flying off."

The train was able to stop a half mile away. A bloodied, crumpled four-wheeler was jammed beneath the engine.

The crew began the horrifying task of "looking underneath the train, all the way through, looking for body parts."

The other four-wheeler had vanished. There was no one around.

"Are they in the water?" rescuers wondered, according to Ross.

Divers, the ALERT helicopter, ambulances, sheriff's deputies, search and rescue, and a boat were summoned to the suspected tragedy.

Eventually, officers learned that all three youths survived the encounter with minor injuries. They had gone on the remaining ATV to the house of a relative, who brought them back to the trestle.

Sheriff Jim Dupont said the three youths had engaged in "stupid" behavior. He identified them as Justin Nelson, Emily Parker and Brock Hopkins.

Ross said criminal charges are possible, including trespassing since the

trestle is private property owned by the railroad.

Problems are frequent on the bridge where about 40 trains pass each day, he said.

People think they can squeeze between a passing train and the wires of the trestle. What they don't consider is that loads of lumber, for example, are secured with protruding straps and cables that are "like a razor blade coming at you at 50 miles per hour," Ross said.

He said he has talked to an elderly woman pushing a stroller across the bridge in the past.

He doesn't want to subject a crew member to killing someone on the trestle and he warns people to stay off the bridge.

"It's a chance you take that you may not come back from," he said.

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com