As his train rumbled through Castle Rock at 40 mph, Union Pacific engineer Dannie Dolan saw a car sitting inside one of the crossing gates that block traffic at Fifth Street.
But Dolan told a Douglas County jury Tuesday that he didn’t apply his brakes because he thought the train wouldn’t hit the red Mazda Protégé.
“There is no question that vehicle was inside the gate,” Dolan recalled. “But I didn’t see any use in (braking) because the car was not on the tracks.”
Instead, Dolan said, he hit his horn to make sure the car didn’t move farther.
Inside the car was Maureen “Missy” Martin, a bubbly 16-year-old who was on her way to Douglas County High School, where she was a cheerleader.
Martin and her boyfriend, Vinny Veruchi, who was behind her in a pickup, had a different perspective from Dolan’s. They thought she was going to be hit.
Veruchi testified that Martin’s car not only was inside the gate but had stalled on the tracks.
Veruchi said Martin was frightened and gestured to him about what she should do. He gestured that she should try to go forward. He said Martin’s car sputtered, moved forward a bit and died.
In desperation, Veruchi drove his pickup into the back of her car, but it wasn’t enough to push it across the tracks. The train smashed into the rear of Martin’s car, causing the vehicle to fly into a concrete barrier, critically injuring Martin.
The Martin family sued Union Pacific and Dolan seeking to recover $600,000 in medical expenses for the brain-damaged young woman and money to support her for life. The jury was seated Monday.
Robert Schuetze, the family’s attorney, said he also wants an “award of damages that will send a message to the railroad that it is not OK to continue at full speed” when a vehicle is so close to the tracks.
Schuetze said Dolan should have applied the emergency brakes as soon as he saw Martin stalled inside the gate, whether she was on the tracks or not.
“It was extremely reckless for this train crew to keep going. To keep going was unacceptable,” he said. “Unfortunately, Missy suffers from many problems that will be with her for the rest of her life.”
But Steven Napper, a Union Pacific attorney, said the railroad was not at fault.
“Missy Martin stopped. The problem was she stopped well beyond where she should have stopped,” Napper said.
He said that when Veruchi tried to push her, “the consequence was that he pushed her into the path of the train.”
Both Dolan and engineer Gilbert Cusworth testified that they thought the train would miss the car, though Cusworth warned Dolan that the car was “close” to the rail lines. Both said that, at the last second, Martin’s car was pushed onto the track.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Cusworth said.
Police have cleared Veruchi of any wrongdoing.
The jury also saw the videotaped testimony of three eyewitnesses to the Nov. 12, 2002, wreck.
Two said they thought the car was on the line before it was pushed ahead; the third didn’t.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at hpankratz@denverpost.com or 303-820-1939.
