(THACKERVILLE, Okla.) — A dramatic video captured the moment an Amtrak train slammed into a semi-truck hauling several cars in Oklahoma, sending vehicles and debris flying and injuring several people on board.
The incident occurred Friday around 7 p.m. local time in Thackerville, near the Oklahoma-Texas border. Minutes before Amtrak Train 822, which operates daily between Fort Worth, Texas, and Oklahoma City, was scheduled to pass through, the car hauler tractor trailer got stuck on the train tracks, Love County Sheriff Marty Grisham told ABC News.
“The tracks are built up a little bit higher” at that crossing, Grisham said. “He had a lot of cars on the trailer. When he tried to cross over the tracks, the trailer high-centered on the tracks, causing him to be stuck and not able to move his tractor-trailer rig any further off the track.”
“Everything was just stuck,” he said.
A bystander who captured the video of the collision called 911, according to the sheriff. Authorities attempted to contact the railroad network operator, but the train couldn’t be stopped in time, Grisham said.
The video showed the railroad crossing gates partially lowered, unable to move past the cars on the upper deck of the double-decker car hauler trailer. The train’s horn blared before the locomotive collided with the trailer, sending debris on both sides of the crossing.
The driver and his dog were “shaken up” but uninjured in the collision, the sheriff’s office said. Five people on board the train were transported to two area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, the sheriff said. All patients involved in the incident have been treated released, a spokesperson for the hospitals told ABC News Saturday afternoon, though couldn’t confirm how many there were total.
There were 110 passengers and crew members on board, according to Amtrak.
“This train was canceled north of the incident scene and northbound customers were provided substitute transportation,” Amtrak said in a statement.
The Love County Sheriff’s Office warned travelers to avoid the area Friday night, as the crash scene would take “several hours” to clean up.
The site was cleared early Saturday morning “and we have resumed operations through the area,” the railroad operator, BNSF, told ABC News.
A traffic investigation is underway by local and state authorities, an Amtrak spokesperson said.
The video of the incident was captured by local Brandon Sampson, according to video licensing agency Storyful. ABC News was unable to reach him.
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
