News
Light rail train, truck collide
Four sent to hospital with minor injuries
By Matt Quane
mquane@mscd.edu
A light rail train collided with a dump truck at the northwest end of campus during the afternoon of Sept. 20.
Photo by Matthew Jonas jonasm@mscd.edu
A Denver firefighter passes in front of the wreckage of an RTD light rail train and a DPW dump truck that collided at the corner of Seventh Street and Colfax Avenue on Sept. 20. Both drivers and two RTD passengers were taken to a nearby hospital with minor injuries.
The driver of the truck, the light rail conductor and two light rail passengers were taken to the hospital for injuries, said Regional Transportation District spokesperson Scott Reed.
Reed said a Public Works dump truck made an illegal right turn onto the light rail tracks.
Patty Weiss, spokesperson for Denver Public Works, said that the accident occurred during a time when traffic was heavy.
Weiss said it is standard for a driver involved in an accident to be taken to a hospital after an accident, and that he had no obvious injuries.
Police on the scene said they would give the driver of the truck citations for making an illegal turn and failure to yield.
Metro animal science student Dusty Smith was riding in the second car of the train when the accident occurred.
She said she felt the train hit its brakes, followed by two hard jolts."When (the train) hit (the truck) the second time, we were all sent forward," Smith said. "Someone was screaming 'Oh my God, he hit someone!'"
RTD provided bus service to light rail passengers who were aboard during the crash.
"RTD said they would get us a bus to take us out of here," said Young.
An RTD maintenance truck was used to pull the light rail train down the tracks and a Public Works truck was used to pull the dump truck away from the scene.
Reed said he did not know the extent of the damage to the train, which was functional and taken to the station on its own power. The train must be inspected before it can be used to transport passengers again.
Reed said the accident caused no major delays to RTD operations and that a bus was brought in to replace passenger transportation.