29-year-old hurt when Amtrak train bound from Indianapolis hits truck
DYER, Ind. (WISH) — One person is recovering after a crash involving an Amtrak train in northern Indiana.
It happened just before 3:30 p.m. Thursday at 77th and Calumet avenues.
The train was headed to Chicago from Indianapolis when the crash happened. Emergency responders got to the scene and found a truck in the ditch on the side of the tracks.
A man from Indianapolis told 24-Hour News 8 was on the train and felt the impact.
Rich Corbin takes the Amtrak to Chicago weekly for work. He said the train coming from New York was supposed to leave Indianapolis around 6 a.m. Thursday, but got delayed because of the deadly train crash Wednesday in Virginia with GOP lawmakers on board.
Corbin said the train was heading into Dyer when everyone on board felt a jerk.
“Just everybody said, Oh, my gosh. What happened?’ We’re all looking at each other wondering what happened,” Corbin said.
He said he knew the train had hit something.
“We heard the brakes slam on, felt a hit, and then they came back and told us we had hit a truck,” he said.
He told 24-Hour News 8 on the phone the train stopped for about three hours before taking off again Thursday evening.
“They (Amtrak officials) came and told us all they could tell, of course, all the police and ambulances,” he said. “They could see the man in the truck moving so they knew at that time at least he was still alive.”
Dyer police said the 29-year-old driver from Dyer was taken to the hospital. He’s expected to be OK and no one else was injured. The driver was not identified in a news release from the police.
Investigators spent hours Thursday night working to reconstruct the scene of the crash. Police had not said by Thursday night what caused the driver of the truck to jump the train tracks.