Sheriff’s Department Studies Response to 911 Call Before Train Wreck : Accident: Investigation asks why dispatchers failed to notify the railroad about a truck stalled on the tracks.

The Sheriff’s Department was investigating Thursday the actions of dispatchers in the moments before a mishap in which a speeding Amtrak passenger train slammed into a tractor-trailer loaded with cars that had become stuck at a Leucadia train crossing.

In the four minutes before the 2:45 p.m. Wednesday wreck, 911 dispatchers at the department’s Kearny Mesa communications center received five calls from witnesses reporting that the tractor-trailer had become lodged at the crossing at Leucadia Boulevard and Highway 101.

While a sheriff’s patrol unit was notified after the first call, dispatchers failed to contact railroad officials in an effort to alert the Amtrak engineer that the truck was in his path, sheriff’s officials acknowledged.

“That’s the crux of our investigation,” said Sgt. Glenn Revell of the Sheriff Department’s public affairs division. “If the dispatcher has information that a tractor-trailer is lodged across the path of a train, we feel it would have been appropriate to notify the Santa Fe railroad. However, that was not done.”

Meanwhile, railroad officials said Thursday that, had they been notified even moments before the crash, they could well have slowed and possibly stopped the passenger train.

“Of course, it depends on getting the information and reaching the engineer but, yes, we probably could have got to him,” said Bob Harper, a Santa Fe railroad assistant regional manager in San Bernardino.

“We had a couple of signal crossings north of that area where we could have alerted the engineer that there was a big rig in his path.”

The engineer of the southbound passenger train was traveling about 88 m.p.h. when he spotted the truck 1,500 feet away, Harper said.

“He applied his emergency brakes and held on,” he said. “The train was probably going about 55 or 60 when collision occurred.”

The impact sliced the rig in two, spraying its cargo of eight automobiles about the intersection like children’s toys, tying up both the railway and nearby vehicular traffic for several hours.

Seven passengers aboard the train were treated for minor injuries at a nearby hospital, as well as two motorists involved a minor crash along Highway 101 moments after the train wreck, officials said.

The train, which became partially derailed upon impact, sustained more than $20,000 in damages, primarily to the lead car, Harper said.

On Thursday, the driver of the tractor-trailer, who was delivering an automobile to a couple who lived nearby the crash site, was issued three citations for his involvement in the mishap.

Michael E. Tune of Summersville, Mo., was cited for driving on a route posted for no-truck traffic along Leucadia Boulevard between Interstate 5 and Highway 101, blocking a railway crossing and stopping at a railway crossing, said sheriff’s Lt. Kathy Fulmer.

On Thursday, the Sheriff’s Deapartment held a press conference at which it was announced that investigators were focusing their attention on the actions of the 911 dispatchers and that they were reviewing tapes of conversations with witnesses in the minutes prior to the wreck.

Dispatchers received the first call shortly after 2:41 p.m., presumably from a motorist with a cellular phone who had noticed the low-slung carrier hung up on the tracks, authorities said.

Thirty-four seconds later, the second caller was told to contact the department’s non-emergency line. A clerk at a nearby convenience store who apparently made the call said he was told by a dispatcher: “We don’t handle minor traffic accidents.”

Sheriff’s deputies who reviewed the tape denied that claim.

“We’re looking to see if a mistake was made either because the dispatcher was not trained to deal with such an emergency or whether the department needs to institute a policy to deal with large vehicles lodged on the tracks--right now, we don’t have such a policy,” said Sgt. Jim Cooke of the department’s public affairs office.

“But it’s not the dispatcher’s fault that truck got stuck on those tracks. It’s not like she ignored the situation--a car was sent to investigate the scene. It’s a judgment call.”

In many would-be emergencies, patrol cars are first sent to the scene to investigate before an ambulance is dispatched, he said.

“That’s what happened here,” Sgt. Revell said. “If we called the Santa Fe Railway every time there was a report of an obstruction, we’d be stopping trains every day.”

On Wednesday, neighbors at the scene of the wreck said they had seen numerous trucks become stuck on the mounded crossing, which they said has become a traffic hazard.

“I’ve lived in this neighborhood 31 years and I’ve seen too many trucks get stuck there,” said one man, who declined to give his name. “That place is a time bomb just waiting to go off.”

Neither railroad officials nor sheriff’s deputies said they have received any complaints about the crossing. Nonetheless, in the wake of the accident, railroad engineers will investigate the slope of the Leucadia Boulevard crossing, Harper said.

“Both the city and the state have requirements for the grade of such crossings,” he said. “We’ll run a survey on the grade and I suppose the city will do the same. Between us, we’ll get to the bottom of any problems that exist there.”