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8, No. 15 Tuesday, February8,26, 2013 Vol.Vol. 7, No. 2, Tuesday, November 2011
Truck and train collide near Chipman Michelle Pinon Editor
The difference between life and death was a few short minutes away for one Chipman area family after a train collided with their truck at the railway crossing just off of Highway 15 and Range Road 185 late Wednesday night. Kyla Sheppard was still dazed by the near death experience the following afternoon. “I’m still in shock. I haven’t been able to eat or sleep,” says the mother who
crash. Sheppard explains that she was driving the truck and had slowed down to ease into the heavy ruts. “I got across the second rail and the tires started spinning. I took off the anti skid and put it into four wheel drive but it would not move.” Sheppard had passed the train while driving home on Highway 15 and knew she didn’t have much time to make a decision. “I tried to flag down a truck, but they didn’t stop.” That’s when she started getting the children, who range
This is a close up view of the tire rut, which measured around four inches deep. barely had enough time to get her four children out of the vehicle and to safety behind a barricade before the crash which happened around 10:20 p.m. that evening. “All I could think about was getting the kids out.” Sheppard’s boyfriend Mike Bacon, tried to rock the truck back and forth to get it off the track, but to no avail. He was forced to abandon the vehicle and head for safety before the
in age from eight months to eight years, out of the vehicle. Sheppard and the kids had just made it past the barricades before she turned around to see the grill of the truck flying over the top of the train. At 10:23 p.m. she called 911 which dispatched the fire department, ambulance, and police. Then she had to walk home, about half a mile down the gravel road. With the wind chill it
was about minus 20 degrees celsius. “The kids weren’t dressed for the weather.” Sheppard had to carry the baby and car seat the entire way. She believes the accident could have been avoided if the area in and around the tracks had been maintained. The build up of hard packed snow and ice had caused the road to become approximately four inches higher than the tracks and created the hazard. “Ever since they (the county) closed the road down they have neglected to plow the road.” There was one occassion that the school bus would not travel down the road for concerns it would get stuck. Sheppard said she has had to phone the county a couple of times this past winter to get the plow to come out. She adds the public works department did send a plow out when she had requested service. Harold Hamilton, public works director for Lamont County pointed out the tracks and area directly around them
A near fatal accident between this truck and a train east of Chipman occurred late Wednesday evening near the small community. falls under the perview of Canadian National (CN) Rail. Graders must lift their blades when going through rail crossings in the municipality. A crew from CN had a catepillar on site late Friday afternoon to remove the build up of ice. Sheppard said the reason why she decided to go public with her story is so that people are aware of how bad the road is before there is a fatality. “We could have all been killed... We were lucky.”
Debris littered the area just east of the crossing.
Barricades indicate the road is open to local traffic only while the bridge remains closed.