A Caltrain hit and killed a pedestrian at approximately 5:14 p.m. Sunday near the Menlo Park station.
The victim was hit while crossing the tracks just south of the Menlo Park station by train #438, Caltrain spokeswoman Tasha Bartholomew told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Bartholomew told CBS 5 reporters that the victim was “on the track for unknown reasons”, and that Caltrain’s “official position” was the person was trespassing.
Some passengers on the train witnessed the accident, others purposefully looked away.
“There was this one girl who saw it and was told by her friend not to look at it anymore ’cause she was clearly disturbed at the sight of it” said passenger Jonathan Vergara, a student at San Jose City College, via Facebook. “I was going to have a look through the window but decided I didn’t want that image in my head tonight.”
The body of the victim ended up underneath the car Vergara was riding in. He and the other passengers were asked to move to a different car.
“We couldn’t leave the train either due to it being a bio-hazard. We waited an hour till they could get us on another train” he said.
This accident marks Caltrain’s seventh fatality of the year, according to Bartholomew.
“Caltrain needs to do something, like make those rail fences harder to climb, because this is the seventh fatality this year and its getting kinda ridiculous” Vergara said.
Caltrain has improved the safety of its crossing areas and stations, according to an email from Bartholomew.
“Since 2006, Caltrain has spent $4.2 million to install 61,000 feet of fencing along its right of way” she said.
–Melodie Miu contributed to this report.
