Woman loses life over lost phone
 |
|
||||||||||
A 19-year-old Shoreline woman was struck and killed by a passenger train yesterday evening while looking for her cell phone near Golden Gardens Park in Seattle, according to police.
In an effort to locate her lost phone, the woman borrowed a friend's cell phone so she could call her own number, said Seattle police spokesman Clem Benton. A man answered and told her to come to the tracks so he could give her the phone.
As she walked north on the northbound tracks, a Seattle-to-Bellingham Amtrak train carrying 50 passengers approached her from behind. Another friend helping to look for the phone waved frantically but the woman may have misunderstood his warning, Benton said.
"There was another train stopped on the southbound tracks," he said. "That train had just begun to move, and the victim may have thought her friend was waving at the other train."
The woman was struck just before 6 p.m. Her name was not immediately released.
The Seattle Police Department's traffic unit remained on the scene last night to investigate.
The train was delayed two hours and 15 minutes before continuing to Bellingham. The accident is the ninth fatal train accident in Washington state this year, according to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, which owns the tracks.
Last month, 14-year-old Katherine Thomas-Smyth was struck and killed by a train near Golden Gardens as she and two friends played along the train tracks.
Signs warn passers-by not to trespass on the tracks, but the corridor from Canada to Tacoma still accounts for 80 percent of accidents in the state, said Burlington Northern spokesman Gus Melonas.
"As the weather seems to get better, there are more trespassing cases," he said.
Frank Vinluan can be reached at 206-464-2291 or fvinluan@seattletimes.com.