Train Hits Man Walking on Trestle
A pedestrian was struck by a southbound Amtrak train as he tried to scramble off a Del Mar train trestle Wednesday afternoon, but he escaped with injuries to one arm.
Patrick McCabe, 30, a horse handler from Cypress, Calif., suffered a fractured right elbow and a double fracture of his right arm when the train knocked him off the trestle after its brakes locked, said Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Lane.
McCabe and his unidentified girlfriend were walking north on the train trestle over the San Dieguito Lagoon shortly before 3 p.m. when the engineer of the southbound train, which had reached Via de la Valle, spotted them and sounded his horn, Lane said.
The couple, who had walked 100 to 150 feet north on the trestle, ran south. The engineer attempted to make an emergency stop, but the train’s brakes locked and the train slid across the trestle, striking McCabe and throwing him down an embankment on the train’s east side. The woman was not hit by the train.
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