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Darwin Awards
2009 Slush Pile

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Beauty & Brains, but not Trains

2009 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

From Staff & Wire Reports

The train’s horn sounded, but Amanda Shoemaker didn’t hear it in time.

The college-bound Simi Valley High School senior was struck and killed by a train Tuesday near Emma Wood State Beach just north of Ventura.

The site has accounted for a sixth of all Ventura County train-pedestrian fatalities over the past 11 years. And at least three of the other pedestrians killed there since 1998 also reportedly didn’t hear the trains coming until it was too late.

Shoemaker, 17, of Simi Valley was walking on the tracks just south of the Pacific Coast Highway overpass about 5 p.m. Tuesday with her boyfriend and an 18-year-old friend when the fatal accident occurred, sheriff’s spokesman Capt. Ross Bonfiglio said Wednesday.

The friends told authorities Shoemaker was taking video of them surfing, Bonfiglio said. Later, the group decided to walk up the tracks and look at graffiti on the walls that line a portion of the railway, Bonfiglio said.

A preliminary investigation showed the northbound Amtrak passenger train was rounding a wide turn and the engineer sounded his horn as soon as he saw people on the tracks, sheriff’s officials said.

One of the teens, a Ventura 18-year-old, was about 150 feet behind Shoemaker and her boyfriend when he heard the train’s horn, Bonfiglio said. Shoemaker and her boyfriend, a 17-year-old Ventura resident, were both apparently unaware the train was coming, authorities said. After hearing the horn, the friend ran toward them, yelling at them to get off, Bonfiglio said.

The boyfriend was able to jump off in time, but Shoemaker could not. The train struck her and threw her body about 175 feet, Bonfiglio said. An autopsy determined she died from multiple blunt-force injuries.

“This is evidence about how quickly the train can come upon you,” Bonfiglio said. “I think people assume they can get off the tracks in time.”

Walking on train tracks is against the law, Bonfiglio said.

Headed to BYU

An all-A student at Simi Valley High, Shoemaker planned to attend Brigham Young University-Idaho, said Sarita Shoemaker, her stepmother.

In school, she played volleyball, ran track, participated in leadership and recently joined a video team. Her latest video was supposed to be from the perspective of her boyfriend, and her family assumes that’s why she went to the beach to film him surfing.

Simi High track and field Coach Roger Evans remembered Shoemaker as always arriving at practice with a smile on her face during the three seasons she ran with the team.

“She wasn’t one of those athletes who loved the sport because she was a superstar and got a lot of recognition,” Evans said Wednesday. “She enjoyed it because of what she got out of it. It was the intrinsic value and getting better and working hard with teammates that she liked.”

When the team had no varsity high jumpers last year, Shoemaker stepped up, Evans said. “She gave up running events she loved, simply because she wanted to help the team out in high jump,” he said.

A mature young woman with a strong work ethic, she worked in the office of Imagymation, a Simi Valley gymnastics center where she was once a student, her stepmother said. She also helped her father and stepmother with 805 Boot Camp, the family’s outdoor fitness and exercise business.

When it came to chores, she set a standard that her siblings had to live up to. “One time she did the bathroom, we actually took pictures it was so clean,” her stepmother said.

Always eager to help, she frequently drove her sister, Morgan, 13, to appointments. Nicknamed “Sparkle dot,” she was active in the Mormon church and loved ice cream, biology and the NBC sitcom “The Office.”

Shoemaker was also adventurous. When her family went to Lake Tahoe last summer, she was the first one in the water, showing relatives how to use wake boards, her stepmother said.

“Her family misses her a ton,” Sarita Shoemaker said. “I don’t even understand that she’s gone.”

Shoemaker’s boyfriend is beside himself, and her father, Randy Shoemaker, “can barely even exist,” her stepmother said Wednesday.

On Wednesday, it seemed to be the only thing Simi Valley High students were discussing on Facebook, said Meagan Seymour, a childhood friend of Shoemaker’s.

“It’s just hard to believe she’s gone,” said Seymour, a senior at Simi Valley High.

Sarita was surprised her stepdaughter was walking on the tracks, and that she didn’t know a train was coming. She wondered, “How could you not hear it?”

Modern trains quiet, fast

Since January 1998, 42 pedestrians have been killed by trains in Ventura County, according to Federal Railroad Administration statistics. At least seven — nearly 17 percent — occurred near Emma Wood State Beach, and in four of those now, authorities suspect the victims did not hear the oncoming trains.

It’s not clear why the area is a trouble spot. The turn in the tracks and popularity of the beach and camping areas might play a role.

Modern trains are quieter than ever, with no telltale “clackety-clack.” Also, an approaching train will always be closer and moving faster than you think, said Pete Aadland, a state coordinator with Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit public education program established in 1972 to end collisions, deaths and injuries along train tracks.

“Never walk down a train track,” he said. “It’s illegal and it’s dangerous.”

By the time a locomotive engineer sees a trespasser or vehicle on the tracks, it often is too late. It’s a simple law of physics: the huge weight and size of the train and its speed can mean a long, slow stop. A 100-car freight train traveling at 55 mph needs more than a mile to stop, according to Operation Lifesaver.

Amtrak officials said the speed limit where Tuesday’s accident occurred is 50 mph, although it was unclear how fast the train was traveling.

The engineer, who was not identified, asked for relief from the controls after the crash, said Verne Graham, an Amtrak spokeswoman. The Pacific Surfliner Train 775 had originated in San Diego and was headed to San Luis Obispo. None of the crew or passengers was injured.

Union Pacific owns the portion of track where the collision occurred, and the speed limit is set and regulated by the Federal Railroad Administration, she said.

Aadland said he is hearing of more and more accidents involving people on or near train tracks wearing earphones and listening to iPods and riding bikes. “Every situation is tragic and somewhat different,” he said.

Griff Hutton, a lieutenant with California State Parks, frequents the areas in and around Emma Wood State Beach and its campground almost daily. While the freeway has constant traffic, the trains’ occasional passing can lull people into a false sense of security, he said.

“I will be in the campground making a contact with someone and all of a sudden I hear, ’Shrrroom’ as the train blazes by,” he said. “They are really quiet and they are going fast.”

— Staff writer Rhiannon Potkey contributed to this report.”

Submitted on 04/30/2009

Submitted by: Walter
Reference: Ventura County Star, 4/29/2009

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: Too Common
Thanks, Walter, but train/pedestrian collisions are way too common. There are thousands of them a year in the US alone.


James said:
Definitely Toss: Too Common
As Bruce said!


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