Brightline: Video shows Delray fire truck going around gates before collision

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include new information.

DELRAY BEACH — Brightline posted a video Saturday night that appears to show a Delray Beach Fire-Rescue ladder truck driving around lowered crossing gates in the moments before a collision Saturday afternoon that split the truck in half and left 15 people injured.

“Railroad safety is a community wide effort,” the company said in a post accompanying the video footage on X. “For everyone’s safety, never drive around crossing gates when they are down.”

Three firefighters and 12 passengers were injured in the crash, which occurred at about 10:45 a.m. Saturday along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks a block south of Atlantic Avenue, across the tracks from the Delray Beach Market food hall.

City officials said Saturday the three Delray Beach Fire-Rescue workers were in stable condition at a local hospital and 12 people from the train were treated for minor injuries.

It wasn’t clear why the ladder truck crossed the tracks in front of an oncoming train. The cause of the crash is being investigated by Delray Beach Police and the National Transportation Safety Board, city officials said in a news release.

Brightline, which operates daily trains between Miami and Orlando, did not respond to a message seeking comment. Saturday evening, the company posted the video of the moments before the collision.

Jordan Kotellos, a barback at Throw Social on Southeast Second Avenue, said he heard a bang when the train and truck collided. He ran out the bar’s rear door to encounter a chaotic scene just a few steps past the rear parking lot.

The ladder truck lay on its side, split in two. One of the three firefighters had been flung from the truck and lay in the grass bleeding, he said.

“One guy got thrown,” he said. “It was hard to see, man. It was terrible.”

It wasn’t his first time witnessing a train collision in the downtown area. In March, he said, he was working in a nearby bar when a woman standing on the tracks was struck and killed by a Brightline train.

At least five people have been killed this year in Palm Beach County in collisions with Brightline trains, including two along the same stretch of tracks in downtown Delray Beach where Saturday’s crash occurred.

The crash left one of the city’s ladder trucks destroyed, but the department has two or three other ladder trucks it can rely on when aerial ladders are needed, said retired Delray Beach Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Kevin Saxton.

East Atlantic Avenue, the city’s commercial corridor, was closed at Southeast 1st Avenue for hours Saturday as police investigated the collision. As the sun began to set, two large tow trucks worked in tandem to remove the truck’s debris.

The train had since pulled away. News photos from just after the accident showed the Brightline engine with a destroyed front.

Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Brightline train strikes Delray Beach Fire-Rescue truck

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