Dozens were injured in when a Metrolink commuter train derailed after striking a pickup truck in Oxnard, California, early Tuesday.
The driver of the truck abandoned the vehicle after getting
stuck on the tracks, The Associated Press reported.
"It seemed like an eternity while we were flying around the train. Everything was flying," passenger Joel Bingham said, according to the AP. "A brush of death definitely came over me."
The engineer of the five-car train pulled the emergency brake after spotting the truck,
which burst into flames in the collision, The Los Angeles Times reported.
“We were knocked out of our seats about a foot or more into the air. At the time, it felt like a long drop back into my seat,” passenger Keana Grey said, according to the Times.
The produce truck driver, a 54-year-old Arizona man, was hauling a 12-foot trailer and apparently misjudged a turn and got stuck on the tracks. He was found more than a mile from the site and appeared disoriented, Jason Benites, assistant chief of the Oxnard police, said, according to the newspaper.
Twenty-eight people were transported to six area hospitals;
four were in critical condition, CBS Los Angeles reported.
Collision energy management technology implemented after a 2008 collision that left 25 people dead likely minimized the injuries, CNN reported.
"We can safely say that the technology worked,"
Metrolink spokesman Jeff Lustgarten said, according to CNN. "It minimized the impact of what (could have been) a very serious collision. It would have been much worse without it."
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident.
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