BREAKING NEWS: At least 38 people were injured, including three seriously, after a train in Chicago collided with a snow removal machine
- At around 10:30 a.m., both trains were on the same track when they collided
- Four children were among the injured
- This is groundbreaking news
Three people are in critical condition and 35 were injured after a passenger vehicle collided with a snowplow on a busy commuter line near downtown Chicago.
Fifteen ambulances had already been dispatched to the scene of the collision between two trains on the same line, 300 meters from Howard Station in the Rogers Park district, shortly after 10.30am.
Chicago Fire Department (CFD) officials said four of the injured included a two-year-old child, 23 people were taken to the hospital and another 15 were treated at the scene.
Shayla Smith heard the accident as she was boarding a Purple Line train in Howard and said passengers on her train began screaming.
“I just heard a terrible boom sound,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“It was a weird boom sound. I felt like we were going to fall over and I wondered what was happening? My body trembled.
The accident occurred shortly after 10:30 a.m. Thursday morning in the Rogers Park neighborhood
Ambulances arrived on nearby roads and at least 15 people were sent to help the injured
In a statement, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) said: “According to preliminary information, at approximately 10:39 a.m., we received a report of a Yellow Line train contacting rail equipment at the Howard Rail Yard.
“Both the yellow and purple lines have been suspended.”
The CTA train was “traveling at its normal speed” when it hit a snowplow that was “not going very fast at all,” said CFD District Chief Robert Jurewicz.
The two were traveling in the same direction, but the train was traveling at about 30 miles per hour while the plow was crawling at about 10 miles per hour, said his colleague Larry Langford.
“The train was much faster and hit the back of the plow.”
The passenger train was traveling south from the outskirts of Skokie, Illinois, toward Rogers Park, the Rogers Park neighborhood in north Chicago.
Seven of the injured were CTA employees.
CFD Deputy Chief Keith Gray said most of the injuries were bumps and bruises, with a few head injuries.
Train passengers in nearby Evanston had to be evacuated when the CTA cut power to the Purple Line following an accident.
“My administration is closely monitoring the North Side train derailment and will direct every available resource needed,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Thank you to the CFD firefighters and first responders on scene.”
Some people were treated at the scene for “bumps and bruises”, but three people were in a critical condition
The CTA train was “traveling at normal speed” when it hit a snowplow that was “not going very fast at all,” said CFD District Chief Robert Jurewicz.
Chicago fire officials said four children were among the injured
This is groundbreaking news.
