St. Paul Minnesota Child’s Foot Severed by Slow-Moving Freight Train
(St. Paul, Minnesota – November 19, 2017)
Another young Twin Cities area youth has become permanently disabled in an incident with a slow-moving freight train in an easily accessible area near the home of relatives.
The as-yet unidentified 7-year-old boy was playing with his brother and cousin, when the trio allegedly “wandered away from the house” of relatives during a sleepover at the relatives’ house on Humboldt Avenue Sunday night. The boys then allegedly decided to try to board the Twin Cities & Western train as it slowly blocked their pathway about 10:15 P.M., CST.
According to numerous news media sources, including The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, St. Paul Police Commander Jeremy Ellison said that, as the boy attempted to board the train, “He started getting dragged, and his foot got caught.” The victim was rushed to St. Paul Regions Hospital for treatment of his disabling injury. Surgeons could not include reattachment of the limb due to the massive, crushing nature of the injury by the train.
Most schools are closed this week for Thanksgiving, which gave the children opportunity for the sleepover which turned into tragedy.
In the most recent St. Paul accident of similar nature, a then-nine-year-old boy lost both feet as he attempted to board another slow-moving train in St. Paul’s North End neighborhood prior to the beginning of the school year in August, 2013.
The Twin Cities and Western Railway is a short line railroad operating over about 229 route miles via the Glencoe, MN-based company’s owned trackage and trackage rights over other Class I rail carriers.
