Horrible Train Crash

[Gypsy In The Palace]

http://www.nwitimes.com/articles/2007/0 ... 08c30b.txt

This happened back in September, so some of you may have heard about this already. But, I was searching around on the Internet, and I happened to run across this horrific story that I could not believe. Apparently, an Indiana mother with 4 kids in the car raced through a parking lot attempting to overtake a train and cross the tracks at the crossing on the other side of the parking lot.

What she does not see is that a train is coming the opposite direction. As she attempts to cross, she is struck by the train coming the opposite direction and thrown into the train that she was initially trying to outrace. Two of the kids were killed. What this article does not mention is that the other two eventually survived, and the mother eventually died (I found that info out through some later articles that mentioned the mother's death).

There is a link in the article to a video that was captured by surveilance cameras. I've watched this video about 15 times because I am just in total shock at what it shows. It's very sad that this family was literally torn apart with the death of the mother plus two of the four kids. But, I cannot believe that anyone would do such a thing. How in the world did she come up with the idea to race through a parking lot like that (The lot appears to be relatively empty, but think about all of the people that she could have endangered in the parking lot) in hopes that she would get up enough speed to maybe beat the train--and all of this with four kids in the car?

I will admit that a couple of years ago, I was pulling up to a crossing right as the crossing gates began coming down. There was one car in front of me, and he went through. When I saw him go through, instinct took over, and I gunned it--getting over the tracks just before the gates got lowered all the way. I was alone, and as I went on down the road, I started beating myself up for doing such a thing. But, even though I shouldn't have done it, I didn't really put myself in that much danger. This was just as the gates were coming down, and I couldn't even see or hear the actual train--just the bells ringing and the gates coming down. Even if my car had stalled on the crossing, I would have had plenty of time to have gotten out of the car and gotten myself out of the way. This woman had to first go at a dangerously high speed through the lot and even had the second train not been coming, she still would have only been safe by mere seconds. What was she thinking?

[TropicalTroubador]

What was she thinking? Obviously she wasn't.

The biggest tragedy was that she wasn't alone in the car. Stupidity like that *should* be punished...but the kids were blameless, and shouldn't have had to experience that.