A commuter train running express slammed into a school bus straddling the tracks in Fox River Grove Wednesday morning in a horrific accident that killed five teenagers and injured about 30, some of them severely.
The bus, carrying students to classes at Cary Grove High School in Cary, had crossed Chicago & North Western commuter tracks on Algonquin Road and was waiting at a red light to make a turn into U.S. Highway 14. But the rear of the vehicle had not cleared the rails, officials said.
The seven-car train, pushed by a locomotive and heading from Crystal Lake to downtown Chicago, was traveling at an estimated 50 miles an hour when it smashed into the end of the bus.
The impact spun the bus around, ripping the body from the frame.
“From then on out, all you heard was screaming,” said Andrea Arens, 19, a witness.
Maria Carreon, 15, who was seated near the front of the bus, said the driver stopped before crossing the tracks, opened the door to look for trains, then proceeded to the red light.
People in the rear of the vehicle who saw the train coming “were running toward the front, yelling, `Go! Go!,’ ” Carreon said.
“I saw the gate coming down and I saw the train coming and I thought, `What is going to happen? Am I going to die or something?’ ”
Another passenger, Teresa Robertson, 15, said one of the gates at the crossing actually hit the bus when it came down.
She estimated the train struck about five seconds later.
“I just felt like I was on a roller coaster,” she said. “Everyone was screaming everywhere.”
Before impact, “We started screaming, `Go! Go!’ ” said Jim Homola, a carpenter who had stopped his car nearby. “It was over in a matter of seconds.”
Homola said he ran to the wreckage and told youngsters from the bus not to move the injured.
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The bus driver “was in hysterics,” he said.
Ambulances and rescue helicopters converged on the scene.
One victim was flown to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood about 30 miles away. Another was airlifted to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Both were listed in critical condition.
The bodies of four of the victims were taken to the McHenry County Morgue soon after the crash. The fifth died later at one of the several hospitals in the area where the injured were taken.
Their identities were not released immediately.
Bells and flashing lights, as well as the gates, were functioning properly at the time of the accident, said Chris Knapton, a spokesman for Metra, the commuter rail agency that oversees service on the line.
The site “is the kind of crossing railroaders hate” because there is only room for a few vehicles between the tracks and the traffic signal, he said.
“One thing about being an engineer on a train, you can’t take evasive action,” Knapton said.
“The only thing you can do is jam on the brakes and lean on the horn and say a prayer.”
An investigator from the Chicago area office of the National Transportation Safety Board was on the scene, and a crew of about a dozen highway and rail experts was being dispatched from safety board headquarters in Washington.
Investigators will check track and signals at the intersection, the mechanical systems of the train and bus and the performance of the engineer and bus driver as they piece together evidence to help determine the cause of the accident, said Pat Cariseo, a safety board spokesman.
Carreon, a junior at the high school, said the woman driver was a substitute who was driving the route for the first time and was behind schedule.
Carreon, who normally boards at 6:40 a.m., was picked up at 7 a.m., she said, and a student in the front seat was giving directions on where to turn.
Jason Robertson, 14, Teresa’s brother, said the driver’s tardiness apparently caused some students who normally ride to make other arrangements to get to school. The bus was less crowded than usual, he said.
The bus was last inspected on May 12, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. No defects were found.
The train’s brakes were to be tested, and investigators removed a “black box” that will reveal such things as speed at the time of the accident and the engineer’s braking action.