Train Slams Two People on Trestle, Killing One

One person is dead, another injured in train mishap.

ByABC News
November 9, 2014, 3:07 PM

— -- A train struck two people who entered a trestle near Lynchburg, Virginia, killing one and injuring the other, police said.

Lynchburg Police said the incident happened along the trestle behind Riverside Park. It's not clear how the pair got onto the trestle at about 4:20 p.m. Saturday.

Police identified the victims as Victoria Bridges, 21, of Newport News, Virginia, who was airlifted from the scene to Lynchburg General Hospital with unspecified injuries, and Jonathan Gregoire, 21, of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

A Central Lynchburg General Hospital spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that they do have the airlifted patient and she is in stable condition and talking with family members. Later today, the hospital reported that Bridges had been released.

PHOTO: Girls console each other as they walk away from the scene of the accident where one of their friends allegedly fell off the train trestle which crossed the James River at Riverside Park, Nov. 8, 2014.
Girls console each other as they walk away from the scene of the accident where one of their friends allegedly fell off the train trestle which crossed the James River at Riverside Park, Nov. 8, 2014.

It was not clear what relationship, if any, the pair who were struck had. Police would not confirm a local news report that four to six people were on the bridge when the freight train came through.

“There were three people that we could see, one beside the tracks, two out on the tracks. As soon as I got there, it was too late. Then I heard a thump. One of them, looked like a girl, jumped. And I heard the one thump, I’m pretty sure the girl jumped and I might have hit the guy, I’m thinking," the train driver told dispatch, according to Brodcastify.com.

Foul play is not suspected in the incident, which remains under investigation by the Lynchburg Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division.

"We constantly try to raise awareness that it is illegal and dangerous. Trains come and go at any time, at least freight trains do. It is illegal and if they are lucky enough to survive they could be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor," Norfolk Southern railroad spokesman Robin Chapman told ABC News. "You can put up higher fences, more signs, but if someone is determined to get over they will."

With reporting by ABC News' Bazi Kanani.