SHILOH — A Mansfield man avoided injuries Saturday night when he exited a Village of Shiloh pickup truck/plow that became stuck on railroad tracks minutes before it was struck by a CSX train.
Mitchell Sampson, 40, of 617 Morgan Ave.. was plowing village streets during the winter storm in a red, 2012 Ford F-550 truck at 6:46 p.m. when the vehicle got stuck on the railway crossing eastbound on Main Street.
A Richland County Sheriff’s Department accident report said there were no injuries in the crash, though the truck was destroyed and the engine hauling the 114-car train was damaged.
No one was cited in the accident, according to Maj. Joe Masi, chief deputy for the sherrif’s department.
According to a statement provided to authorities by Sampson, he had little time to react before the train struck the truck at an estimated 45 miles per hour.
After exiting the vehicle, Sampson said he called co-workers immediately to get help freeing the truck. He looked for a phone number for the CSX dispatcher, but saw the crossing gates go down almost immediately.
“I realized how fast the train was going. I ran,” Sampson said in the statement. “The whole incident from the time I lost traction to the gates going down was less than three minutes.”
The train was eastbound toward Cleveland, according to conductor Matthew McDonald, 38, one of the three train operators listed in the accident report. The others were Christopher Dimascio, 54, and David Tinsley, 48.
McDonald, a conductor for 12 years, told deputies the train came around the curve west of the village and saw amber lights near the tracks.
“The engineer was blowing the horn per the rules. As we approached State Route 603 (Main Street in the village), we saw the vehicle was in the crossing. After striking the vehicle, we came to a stop,” McDonald said in the statement.
McDonald told deputies he could not tell if anyone was in the vehicle. He said the train struck the rear of the truck less than one minute after operators saw it on the tracks.
