Woman Driving SUV Hit By SEPTA Train Dies From Injuries
LANSDOWNE, Pa. (CBS) -- The woman who was driving an SUV that was hit by a SEPTA train on the Lansdowne-Upper Darby line died from her injuries on Tuesday. Her identity has not been released.
A SEPTA train full of passengers slammed into the vehicle Monday morning. The accident happened on SEPTA's Media/Elwyn line.
Surveillance video captured the impact as the train pushed the SUV down the inbound track for approximately 500 feet.
The driver was taken to Penn Presbyterian Hospital where she died from her injuries Tuesday.
The video shows signals, lights and crossing gates were all activated, but SEPTA confirms a number of vehicles proceeded through the intersection anyway.
The signals first tripped when an outbound train headed towards the direction of Media came through. Eyewitnesses believe the drivers who drove through the crossing did so believing the danger had passed.
But an inbound train in the direction of 69th Street came through and that's when the impact happened.
SEPTA officials say they are disturbed at what happened. They say what happened here could have been disastrous since crashes involving cars on tracks have led to derailment.
"What they did not realize when they took that chance was there was an inbound northbound train coming with over 300 people on the train into Center City. The gates remained down to allow that northbound train to safely proceed through the gate crossing. Unfortunately, a couple drivers decided to take a chance and drive around a gate crossing and after the first two cars made it, the third car making that attempt was unsuccessful and was struck by the inbound train," said Jim Fox, assistant general manager for system safety at SEPTA.
The train did activate the emergency brakes, but at 50 mph, officials say it is nearly impossible to come to a stop very quickly.
There were around 300 people on board the train at the time of the accident. No other injuries were reported.