DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Brightline rail company released video footage showing a crash in Delray Beach on Dec. 28, where one of its trains collided with a fire truck, injuring three firefighters and 12 passengers.
Brightline shared the video on X capturing when one of its trains passed a freight train. The footage shows the train stopping just before impact as a Delray Beach Fire Rescue ladder truck crossed the tracks despite the guardrails being down, CBS News Miami reported.
BocaNewsNow.com reported that sources with knowledge of the details of the crash revealed that the fire department was responding to two emergency calls for service at the time of the incident.
The first call, dispatched at 10:32 a.m., was for a reported commercial building fire at 365 SE 6th Avenue. Moments later, a second call occurred for a traffic collision near 430 NE 6th Avenue. Truck 115, the fire truck struck by the Brightline train, was en route to the commercial building fire when the crash occurred.
While multiple fire units reported delays at railroad crossings as they responded to the building fire and traffic crash, a source indicates that there was no report of delays from Truck 115.
“We saw a cargo train go by first on our right side and pretty much within a second after that we felt what we thought was maybe an initial brake, but it was immediately before the impact basically,” Brightline passenger Zach Thrasher said. “We knew we hit something, we knew we hit something significant. We thought initially it was a car. We had no idea it was a fire truck until a few minutes later, like after the fact and you could see some of the debris.”
Thrasher said he and his family were in the last passenger car at the very end of the train, CBS 12 reported.
“I know the crossing arms were down,” Thrasher said. “We saw they were still down, you know, after the fact.”
A Delray Beach spokesperson said the three firefighters who were injured are in stable condition. The collision is being investigated by the Delray Beach Police, Brightline and the National Transportation Safety Board.
