Risky: Texting across tracks

Maybe I'm just too jaded here, but DUH!

Now I'm waiting for local officials to say we need to make laws about text messaging, but is that really necessary? I am of the opinion that paying attention to your surroundings is common sense. If you are unable to do that, then (this may sound callus) the problem will correct itself.

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Man hurt by train was messaging, witnesses say

Officials think that Zachariah Smith was so engrossed in sending a text message Monday that he didn't notice a train - until it hit him as he crossed tracks in Elmwood Place.

Smith, 18, was on Township Avenue about 10 a.m. Monday waiting to cross the tracks. The gates were down to allow a CSX train to continue its southbound route.

When that train passed, Smith, apparently too intent on texting, was hit by a northbound Norfolk Southern train that he didn't see coming from the other direction. He was thrown about 50 feet.

Smith was taken to University Hospital, where he was listed in serious condition.

"The only way the train could have missed him was if it could make a turn," Elmwood Place Mayor Richard Ellison said Monday. Ellison arrived at the scene moments after Smith was hit.

"There were five witnesses. I talked to three of them myself," Ellison said.

They told Ellison that Smith looked as if he was using his phone to send a text message and didn't see the onrushing train.

"The horn was blowing like mad, and the kid was text-messaging," Ellison said.

"The kid apparently was just daydreaming."

Officials suspect that Smith confused the horn and noise made by the oncoming train with that of the train that had just passed him heading south.

Deer Park's Mike Billups saw the train hit Smith, knocking him through the air and, at least at first, knocking him out.

"Initially, I thought he had cleared the train until I saw (Smith) from underneath the train lying on the ground," Billups said.

When Billups ran to Smith, he was unconscious, but soon regained consciousness.

Ellison said Smith appeared "a little roughed up" with a nose bleed, bump on the head and some scratches.

There had been "practically no" incidents at that railroad crossing Ellison said. The crossing is maintained by Norfolk Southern and had all gates and lights in working order, police said.