Thursday, January 8, 2015

INJURED JACKSONVILLE MAN WALKS AWAY AFTER TRUCK COLLIDES WITH TRAIN IN HAVELOCK, NORTH CAROLINA



INJURED JACKSONVILLE MAN WALKS AWAY AFTER TRUCK COLLIDES WITH TRAIN IN HAVELOCK, NORTH CAROLINA


An injured man crawls from his vehicle after he collided with a train Thursday morning.
Drew C. Wilson/Havelock News
By Halifax Media Services
Published: Thursday, January 8, 2015 at 11:17 AM.
Updated at 1:51 p.m.

A Jacksonville man walked away after his pickup truck collided with a train Thursday morning in Havelock.

Witnesses said that Robert John Isder Jr., of Jacksonville, was attempting to make a right turn off Lake Road onto Miller Boulevard when he was struck by a slow-moving Norfolk Southern locomotive shortly after 9 a.m.

Isder’s GMC Sierra SLE pickup truck flipped on its top and was dragged about 50 feet from the intersection, with heavy damage to the driver’s side door where the impact occurred. Isder, a staff sergeant with Marine Transport Squadron 1 at Cherry Point according to base officials, managed to crawl out of his overturned pickup truck with the assistance of Havelock Fire and Rescue personnel and Havelock police officers. He was transported to CarolinaEast Medical Center in New Bern as a precaution. A hospital spokeswoman said that Isder was treated and released.
A Norfolk Southern rail worker said the train was carrying six full cars of coal to Camp Lejeune at the time of the collision.

Pieces of hard plastic and glass were left on the bottom steps of the locomotive’s front end. Only the slightest scratches were evident on the engine’s cattle catcher, a broad piece of curved steel meant to push away anything that gets in the path of the train.
“It’s like a bug on a windshield,” Havelock Police Capt. David Bratton said of the collision between the 200-ton locomotive and half-ton pickup truck.
Robin Chapman, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, said the total weight of the train was 852 tons.
“The analogy we always use is it’s like a car hitting a soda can,” Chapman said.
Havelock Police Chief David Magnusson said after seeing the damaged truck that Isder was fortunate.
“Any time you have a train and a car, it never ends well for the car,” Magnusson said. “I’m just glad no one was injured seriously. You don’t see people usually walk away from a matchup between a car and a train.”
A woman who witnessed the wreck said that Isder had stopped at the stop sign at the end of Lake Road and then pulled out to cross the tracks in front of the slow moving train. The woman said the warning bells and lights were operating at the time of the collision.
Havelock Police officer Georges LeBlanc investigated the wreck. Isder was charged with failure to obey railroad signs, Magnusson said.
The intersection where the collision occurred is one of the busiest in Havelock. Lake Road, Greenfield Heights Boulevard, Church Road and Miller Boulevard all come together at the railroad crossing, which is lighted with railroad signs and overhead lights but has no crossing arms.
The last car of the train blocked the intersection for about 95 minutes. Officials had to wait on investigators from Norfolk Southern to arrive at the scene from Chocowinity before moving the train.

The collision is the second such wreck at the intersection in two years. On Jan. 25, 2013, a woman was injured when she drove her van into the path of an oncoming train as she drove down Greenfield Heights Boulevard.