An LIRR engineer became an action hero when he helped save the life of a passenger on his locomotive as it derailed after a fatal collision with a pickup truck, officials said Wednesday.
“The engineer did a great job,” said Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder. “He saw the impact when he hit the platform. He ran toward the rear away from it, almost like a movie scene … cement and rebar coming through the front, and there was also a civilian there that he pushed out of the way.”
The Penn Station-bound train had struck the pickup, killing its three occupants, at 7:20 p.m. Tuesday at a grade-level crossing in Westbury. The truck had gone around a safety gate after the driver pulled away from an accident involving another vehicle, authorities said, and had already been clipped by an eastbound train when it was obliterated by the westbound locomotive.
The force of the wreck caused the second train to partially derail and take out 300 feet of platform at the Westbury station. As the disaster unfolded, the unidentified engineer sprung into action.
“He had to run from the front of the car to the very rear of the car” to escape the danger zone, Ryder said, noting that the engineer and the passenger were the only two people in the first car of the train.
Debris, including rebar and chunks of concrete from the platform, were piled several feet high inside the front of the derailed LIRR train on Wednesday.
Splattered blood was seen along the side of the train car and on the pickup, which was reduced to an unrecognizable crumpled ball of scrap. “The vehicle that was hit, the only thing we have left is the engine itself,” Ryder said.
Both the engineer and the passenger had to be rescued by first responders after they became trapped in the first car.
“It could have been severe,” Ryder said, adding that the front train cab “was completely destroyed.”
The police commissioner also revealed Wednesday that before the pickup truck had crossed onto the tracks, it was involved in a “minor car accident” with another vehicle.
A witness, who was involved in that crash, “said that [the pickup truck driver] was involved in the accident and went around the gate.”
Ryder, however, refused to say whether the driver of the pickup truck was trying to flee the scene of the crash.
The first train that struck the vehicle had been heading to Hicksville and carrying 800 people, officials said. The second one, which derailed, carried about 200 people.
The identities of the pickup truck victims have not been released.
Nassau University Medical Center surgeon Dr. Kelley Sookraj said Wednesday that seven patients involved in the collision were brought to the hospital.
Two were classified as “Level 1” trauma cases, with one who suffered a spinal injury and another who suffered internal abdominal bleeding. All of the injured were expected to make a full recovery.
According to officials, the impact from the crash caused damage to 200 feet of third rail, as well as to one of the two tracks.
The MTA said its crews were “working around the clock to rerail damaged train cars and repair damaged track.”