Saturday, September 13, 2008

Death By Text Message?

There's a twist in one of the nation's deadliest train crashes. Metrolink, the operator of LA's passenger rail system, accepted responsibility for yesterday's crash of one of its commuter trains with a freight train on the same track, which has killed more than two dozen people. A spokesman for Metrolink said "it was a Metrolink engineer that failed to stop at a red signal and that was the probable cause." A CBS affiliate is reporting that the Metrolink engineer, Robert Sanchez, sent a text message to a teen friend approximately one minute before his commuter train crashed with the freight train to tell him where he would be meeting another passenger train. A spokesperson for Metrolink said of the report, "I can't believe someone could be texting while driving a train." Sanchez worked for a subcontractor for Metrolink, Veolia. Sanchez died in the crash. The teen who received the text message from Sanchez, along with some of his friends, put together a YouTube tribute to him, which you can view here. A division of Veolia operates the Indianapolis Water Company.

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