Hudson – A 10-year-old girl was hit by an empty coal train and killed while on her way home from a store with some candy she bought Tuesday afternoon, said Weld County Undersheriff Margie Martinez.
Hudson residents at the scene identified the victim as Stormy Christensen.
The girl, alone at the time, apparently tried to run across the tracks in front of the long train, Martinez said.
“Witnesses said she was trying to beat the train,” Martinez said.
She was knocked about 25 yards and ended up lying beside the tracks. Her body was removed by the Weld County coroner about 2½ hours later.
Dillon Martin, 12, a friend of the girl’s brother, said he had seen her run across the tracks ahead of a train before but that the train was always farther down the tracks.
Ted Gerstner and his wife, Linda, live along the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe tracks, south of the crossing, and had just gone inside their home when the accident occurred.
Gerstner said he was the first person to get to the little girl after she was struck.
“She was gone,” he said. “She had a huge gash in her back.”
Linda Gerstner said this is the couple’s eleventh summer in the house and that accidents at the crossing have been rare.
“One car was hit, and one dog was killed,” she said. “That’s all.”
Still, several residents of this town northeast of Brighton said they consider the crossing dangerous because the railroad tracks cross Colorado 52 at an angle and there are often empty boxcars parked on one of three tracks crossing the highway there, obstructing the view.
Judy Baumgartner said she’s seen children climb over or crawl under the parked train cars rather then go to the crossing to get across the tracks.
“It is a dangerous situation,” she said.
Martinez said the girl was crossing the tracks on a paved pedestrian path along the south side of the highway. Crossing arms come down to block traffic as a train approaches, but they don’t block the pedestrian path.
There were cars stopped at the crossing, and they honked their horns at the girl, trying to stop her, Martinez said.
“You hear those trains all the time, blaring their whistles,” said Richard Deteris, the Gerstners’ next-door neighbor. “This time it seemed different. It was all the people honking.”
“She was a beautiful young girl. She was bright and polite. She was a very, very lively girl,” Deteris said. “She was my daughter’s best friend.”
Martinez said no citations are anticipated.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
