Train versus car... It was a close call for one morning commuter.
A Middlesex Vermont woman accidentally drove onto the tracks, and was struck by an oncoming Amtrak train. Tonight the driver, her two dogs and everyone on the train are ok.
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No lights, no traffic arm... just railroad crossing signs. It was right off Route 2 in Middlesex when 59 year old Colleen Bloom was crossing the tracks Tuesday morning. Police say the snow covered road and Bloom's ice covered boots sent her sliding into an oncoming Amtrak train carrying 24 passengers.
"I've never seen anything like it," Witness Ethan Tyrrell said.
Tyrrell lives right next to the railroad tracks.
"I've driven across the tracks a thousand times and I've never even been close to an encounter like that," he said.
The Amtrak train was going 60 miles per hour. Police say Bloom, one of the owners of the Onion River Animal Hospital tried to stop, but her foot slipped off the break, and on to the gas pedal.
When I got to the place where Bloom's car had been towed, she was actually there getting a couple things out, she didn't want to do an on camera interview because she was still just so shook up, but she did tell me off camera that after firefighters asked her numerous times whether or not she was ok and Bloom said she indeed was, one of the firefighters joked that she should buy a lottery ticket.
"It's hard to believe, she's just very lucky. It makes me feel a lot better that no one was hurt," Tyrrell said.
There was minor damage to the Amtrak train. It was stopped and checked out for about an hour, and then kept going south on its scheduled route to Washington D.C.
Just yesterday in Sharon, Vermont nearly the same thing happened. A driver slid onto the tracks and was hit by an Amtrak train, and get this, police say it was the same conductor as today's incident. The driver in yesterday's crash had minor injuries.
