The 2-year-old boy killed in a train crash earlier this month might have survived if he had been in a car seat, according to a Department of Public Safety report.
The 22-page report, released Tuesday, also says Jose Angiano was alive when officers found him lying along the tracks after the 3,498-ton Union Pacific train plowed into his family's stalled pickup truck June 2 near Maricopa, about eight miles west of Casa Grande.
The report, however, does not resolve the differing accounts of the accident given to investigators by the family and the train's three-member crew, and it does not assign blame for the crash.
Jose's family disputed the report, saying that it would have been difficult to remove the boy from a car seat as well as from a seat belt and that relatives did everything possible to save him.
Olivia Garcia, 38, the boy's grandmother, told authorities that she frantically tried to unbuckle Jose's seat belt as the train hurtled toward them at 50 mph. The boy's 16-year-old aunt and 6-year-old uncle got out safely, and a bystander pulled Garcia away at the last second.
But the train's engineer told The Arizona Republic that he saw the boy standing in the cab of the truck, watching as the train approached. Two other train crew members told investigators that they also saw the boy standing in the cab.
Officer Kevin Wood, a DPS spokesman, said he could not comment on either account and said it's impossible to say whether the child was buckled in a seat belt.
State law requires children younger than 5 to be in a car seat. Investigators did not find one in Garcia's truck.
''As God as my first and last witness, I could not take the baby out of that seat belt,'' Garcia said Tuesday.
In his report, DPS Officer R. Garcia said that because the truck cab was intact, Jose might have lived had he been strapped into a car seat.
''Due to the good condition of the bench seat and the good condition of the roof and cab structure, I conclude that the child may have survived if the child would have been properly restrained in a car seat designed for children Jose Angiano's age,'' the officer wrote.
The DPS report does not conclude who is at fault, but it includes interviews with eight witnesses who watched in horror as the 4,715-foot-long train rammed the Chevrolet pickup, scattering its axle, engine, hood and a quarter panel along the tracks.
The impact hurled Jose through the windshield, vaulting him 139 feet east of where the tracks intersect Arizona 347.
Officers who arrived later had to restrain Olivia Garcia from racing back to the track to look for Jose. Investigators said that when they found the child, they believed he was dead, but seconds later heard him take a breath. Jose was flown to Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, where he was pronounced dead.
Olivia Garcia told The Republic that as she drove onto the tracks about 9 p.m., her truck stalled, trapping her between flashing crossing arms. Within a minute, she said, the train came into view.
A Union Pacific spokesman in San Francisco said the company is conducting its own investigation and could not comment on the DPS report.
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Reproduced with permission from: The Arizona Republic Byline: By Carol Sowers ©Copyright 2000 Arizona Republic |
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