3 Firefighters, 12 Passengers Hurt in Delray Beach Ladder Truck, Train Collision

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Three firefighters and 12 train passengers were hospitalized after a Brightline train crashed with a fire truck in crowded downtown Delray Beach late Saturday morning.

The crash took place about 10:45 a.m. near the intersection of East Atlantic Avenue and Railroad Avenue, city officials said.

Two of the firefighters were transported as trauma alerts in serious condition, according to Delray Beach Fire Rescue Chief Ronald Martin, who had just arrived at the scene of the crash from Delray Medical Center, where he had been visiting the firefighters. A third firefighter was also transported. 

The two taken in serious condition are now stable but will “most likely have prolonged admission at the hospital,” Martin said.

Delray Beach Police Traffic Sgt. Matt Sarazeni, who is investigating the crash, said all firefighters had been conscious at the hospital.

The Brightline passengers were hospitalized with minor injuries. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue assisted Delray Beach Fire Rescue in taking people to the hospital.

Emily Gordon was in a car outside of a nearby office building Saturday morning with her two sons, ages 5 and 3, waiting for her husband to pick up some of his belongings. They watched what appeared to be a freight train go by, she said, then a few emergency vehicles. Then they saw the fire truck going by with its ladder, an exciting occurrence for the two boys, who both love emergency vehicles. 

The truck appeared to pause for a second on the tracks, Gordon said. Then the Brightline train slammed into it, breaking into three parts.

“It wasn’t just they got hit by a train,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, “the thing exploded.”

Her sons started crying. Gordon got out of the car as people from throughout the area raced toward the scene after hearing the loud crash, some already filming. One of the firefighters was pulled, bloodied, from the wreckage.

Gordon wasn’t sure how the crash happened or whether the rail crossing arms were down at the time. Officials have not said why the truck was on the tracks. Delray Beach Police, Brightline officials, and the National Transportation Safety Board are all investigating.

The Brightline train remained stopped on the tracks closer to East Atlantic Avenue well into the afternoon, its front crushed, about a block away from the twisted fire truck, split in half and lying on its side. Its ladder had been ripped off and lay in the grass several yards away.

“We will begin our evacuation procedures momentarily,” an announcement could be heard blaring from the train’s speakers about 12:30 p.m. Shortly after, passengers began evacuating from the stopped train onto a new train. Later, workers would come to disassemble the stopped train to remove it from the tracks, city officials said.

Debris could be seen scattered along the stretch of tracks starting at the railroad crossing at Southeast First Street all the way to the crossing at East Atlantic Avenue.

Streams of passers-by flocked to the scene from Atlantic Avenue, where they had been working, enjoying brunch or shopping, taking videos and asking officials what had taken place.

Jordan Kotellos was working as a barback nearby when he heard a loud bang and thought the train had derailed. He ran over with another barback, where he said he saw a firefighter lying on the ground, bleeding while a woman put his head on her knee to keep it elevated. He said he also saw another injured firefighter.

“I’ve worked on the Ave for 10 years and this is the third incident I’ve witnessed,” Kotellos said, citing a pedestrian fatality and a woman who got stuck. “Why have train tracks in one of the busiest spots in Delray?”

Gordon was still shaking a few hours after the crash. Her sons “keep talking about how a choo choo hit a fire truck,” she said.

A Boynton Beach resident, Gordon doesn’t really frequent the area, but she wonders about the safety of the railroad tracks in such a densely populated nightlife spot.

“That is the worst location to have a train track,” she said. “There’s drunk people, there’s tourists, there’s all sorts of traffic right there.”

East Atlantic Avenue at Southeast First Avenue is temporarily shut down because of the investigation, city officials said in a news release Saturday afternoon, saying “authorities anticipate that the roadway will reopen once the investigation and any necessary cleanup are complete.”

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