NEW DETAILS: Other Rescue Units Reported They Were Stopped At Tracks. Why Did Delray Beach Fire Truck 115 Pull In Front Of Brightline Train?
BY: ANDREW COLTON | Editor and Publisher
DELRAY BEACH, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2024 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — The National Transportation Safety Board is likely to spend considerable time reviewing two-way radio communication between several Delray Beach fire trucks and Palm Beach County’s dispatch center in the minutes before Saturday’s crash where a Brightline train plowed into a Delray Beach fire truck that was on the tracks near Atlantic Avenue and SE First Avenue. Fifteen people, including three firefighters, were injured.
Sources familiar with very preliminary details of the crash but not authorized to speak with news media told BocaNewsNow.com that there were two active “calls” for service from Delray Beach Fire Rescue at the time of Saturday’s crash. The first was a reported commercial building fire at 365 SE 6th Avenue. That call was dispatched at 10:32, according to a source. A second call, dispatched seconds later, was for a traffic collision in the area of 430 NE 6th Avenue. Dispatchers from Palm Beach County, which handles dispatch duties for the Delray Beach Fire Department, sent units from its stations to both scenes. Truck 115, the fire truck struck by the Brightline Train, was en route to the commercial building fire at the time it was hit.
But while multiple units from several Delray Beach stations all reported railroad crossing delays as they worked their way to the building fire and traffic crash scenes, a source says the driver of Delray Beach Truck 115 did not. This suggests that multiple units at various railroad crossings all saw gates in the down position, warning of passing trains, and waited. But the driver of Truck 115, according to a source, may have decided to drive around the railroad crossing gates — trying to rush to the fire scene.
Witnesses — in the minutes after the crash — told BocaNewsNow.com that they saw Fire Truck 115 stop briefly for a freight train, but then drive around the active crossing gates, only to be struck by the Brightline Train. Witnesses suspect that the fire truck driver thought the tracks were clear once the freight train passed, or believed he or she could outrun whatever train was coming next. The fire truck was hit by the Brightline Train just seconds later.
The City of Delray Beach Police Department is launching its own investigation. There is no indication that the Brightline engineer would have had any reason to believe a fire truck would be passing on its tracks as it traveled through Delray Beach. However, the crash is raising new questions about Brightline safety. The rail line is considered the most dangerous in the United States, as it is believed more people die on Brightline tracks than on tracks from any other rail system in the United States. Brightline has not issued a formal statement regarding Saturday’s crash as of mid-morning Sunday.
ED NOTE: We initially received information that the fire truck involved in the crash was truck 111. Subsequent photos clearly show it was truck 115. We apologize for the miscommunication.
More people die PER MILE than any other line.
Why is Brightline dangerous in the United States? This question must be answered by the National Transportation Safety Board. There aren’t many options. Over the past two years, I have read several times about Brightline trains colliding with cars and pedestrians. In the last 20 years of my time in Chicagoland, I don’t remember reading about a train colliding with a pedestrian or car. I remember one accident where a railway wagon was derailed. I am appealing to the press, Boca News: ask NTSB, Scherif’s Office, and Florida State proper authorities often, very often, and inform us about the progress in analyzing why Brighline is #1 “Collisionline”. There is a lot of data to analyze. However, if the NTS Board decides that everything is fine, i.e. as everywhere, then the entire board should be sent home.
“Mark Luczkiewicz,” it appears, pending the outcome of the NTSB Investigation, that the Brightline train had the right of way, and that the train, it’s operator, staff, and passengers suffered an adverse outcome, as a result of gross negligence and utter stupidity by the Chauffeur (driver) and Officer of Delray Beach Fire Department Truck 115. The Delray Beach Fire Department and the City of Delray Beach will pay for this, dearly, as they should. If the City of Delray Beach leadership have not launched a top to bottom management audit of the Delray Beach Fire Department, following this incident, by experts in the science of management (not a bunch of career firefighter dopes), than they are late to the scene, irresponsible, and maybe, negligent.
This crash is nothing new to the fire service, nationally. Watch how fire apparatus is operated in the USA; watch the speed that fire apparatus travels at, watch the regard that the operator of the fire apparatus (and the Officer, sitting in the front seat of the fire apparatus) place on other motor vehicle operators, pedestrians, and bicyclists, watch their blatant disregard for state motor vehicle laws, and than watch the utter stupidity of the operators of the fire apparatus. THEN, do some science, and calculate the weight of the fire apparatus (between 19 and 30 TONS), and the speed that he fire apparatus travels at, and you’ll discover the absolute recipe for disaster that the operators of some fire apparatus undertake.
Mark my words, this incident in Delray Beach will likely change little. It are deaths that are most likely to change public policy, not injuries, not negligence, and not stupidity.
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