Two Teenage Brothers Hit, Killed By Amtrak Train in North Carolina
(Mebane, North Carolina – September 30, 2011)
Brothers Dustin Davis, 19, and Darian Davis, 17, were killed Friday evening just prior to 7:45 P.M. as they walked home from a friend’s house along Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks in Mebane, NC, and were struck by an eastbound Amtrak passenger train traveling at 79 mph and carrying 189 passengers bound for Raleigh, NC. Orange County, NC.
Sheriff’s deputies said the train’s engineer did not see the brothers until the train rounded a bend just after crossing 5th Street. Melissa Jarrell, the boys’ mother, became concerned when she heard of the accident and could not reach her sons by cell phone.
“I went running up there and asked them is it my kids?”, said Jarrell. “They asked me what they had on, and I explained it, and they told me yes, it was them.”
She added that she never heard the train whistle, and feels her sons never heard the train approaching.
“A train can come along at any time,” said Norfolk Southern Spokesperson Robin Chapman, adding that “it is dangerous and illegal to be on the tracks.”
Eddie Lynch, who lives nearby, countered ”I walk them (the tracks) about every day,” and added that the trains are quiet and that he has almost been hit himself.
