Over the weekend in Redmond, traffic was brought to a halt in what could be considered a real driver’s nightmare.
“A camper became dislodged from a pickup truck at Evergreen and 97 at the railroad crossing,” Lt. Eric Beckwith with Redmond PD. “At that intersection crossing.”
The driver was stuck on the tracks with no way to move it.
“The person that was operating the vehicle that had the camper become detached from the truck called 911,” said Beckwith. “Our dispatch center was actually able to alert Burlington Northern, the railroad company to get the railroad shutdown.”
Beckwith says Redmond Police responded to pull the camper off the tracks and did it pretty quickly.
Kacey Davey with the Oregon Department of Transportation says situations like these are uncommon for their department.
“It is a pretty rare situation where some piece of debris is lost right on the railroad tracks because they don’t occupy too much space on our highway system, so it is not something we see very often, but our crews know what to do in that situation,” said Davey.
Uncommon, it may be, but safety should still be on top of the mind.
“Anytime you are going to be hauling anything in your vehicle, make sure that you know your vehicles capabilities and that you secure your load so that you don’t lose anything out the back of your vehicle or your truck,” Davey said.
If you are in a similar situation, stuck on the tracks, stay calm, get away from the vehicle, and then call law enforcement.
“They can contact the railroad in a relatively quick fashion to make sure we don’t have a collision between a train and any kind of vehicle,” said Beckwith.
No injuries were reported during the incident.
