Arkansas Passenger Killed, Driver and Child Passenger Seriously Injured at Deadly Union Pacific Crossing
(Stuttgart, Arkansas – June 22, 2019)
A 55-year-old Stuttgart, AR woman became the second fatality to be suffered at the crossing of Union Pacific Railroad and West 10th Street in Stuttgart late Saturday afternoon. At about 6:45 PM, a Union Pacific freight train struck the passenger’s 2017 Hyundai.
Joyce Yvonne Racy was pronounced dead at the scene by an Arkansas County Coroner. The driver, Lorenzo Racy, 67, and a minor male child, possibly the couple’s grandson, were transported to Baptist Health Medical Center in Stuttgart where they were admitted for treatment of their crash-related injuries.
The crossing, where now six accidents have killed two and also had a non-fatal injury incurred, was not equipped with any active warning devices, such as lights and gates. Whether the position of the sun at that time of evening or tree foliage located near the crossing were factors to be considered in the investigation of the deadly collision were not immediately known at this time.
The previous fatality occurred on September 22, 2008, but the fatality clearly did not convince the railroad to place flashing lights and gates at the crossing. The addition of flashing lights and gates would almost certainly have prevented this collision
