Female Pedestrian Killed Just Hours After End of College Football Game
(Norman, Oklahoma – September 8, 2012)
An as-yet unidentified woman, part of the crowd leaving Memorial Stadium in Norman, OK following Oklahoma’s 69-13 victory over Florida A&M, became the second death in a week and the seventh fatality in the past three years in the city as she was struck and killed by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train near the intersection of Main Street and James Garner Avenue around 10:30 P.M. Saturday night.
Last week, a 38-year-old man was tragically killed in the same general area as Saturday night’s victim, whom Norman Police Lt. Jeff Robertson would describe only as a “white female”, declining to say if she was a college student.
“It’s really hard to tell,” Robertson said, adding that “I don’t want to speculate at this point.”
Witnesses said they heard the train screech to a halt, but did not know why. Capt. Todd Gibson of the Norman PD said “As you know, we have a lot of pedestrian traffic right now because of the OU football game having just ended. There were a lot of people out walking so there’s no indication as to why the person was on the tracks.”
Norman PD Lt. Chris Amason, who had been interviewed by The Daily Oklahoman after last week’s tragedy, explained that Norman has a problem with people getting killed by the dozens of trains that pass through the city each day.
Indeed, Federal Railroad Administration statistics indicate that an average of 32 trains, including two Amtrak passenger trains, travel through the Norman/OU BNSF corridor daily at speeds as high as 79 mph.
