Woman on Tracks Injured by Train

A San Diego County woman was critically injured when a freight train struck her Thursday afternoon while she was walking on the tracks in Encinitas, sheriff’s deputies and train officials said.

The woman, whose name was withheld pending notification of relatives, was struck by a Santa Fe train going 50 m.p.h. near Vulcan Avenue and Santa Fe Drive at 4:26 p.m., the Sheriff’s Department said.

The train crew blasted the horn as it approached the woman, who was walking in the middle of the tracks, said Mike Martin, spokesman for Santa Fe Railway.

“As they got closer, they applied the emergency brakes . . . and she pulled her coat over her head, not like she was frightened, but it was more like an ‘I don’t want to hear this as it hits me’ kind of thing,” Martin said.

The woman was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where she was in critical condition Thursday night with head injuries and cuts on her thigh, Sheriff’s Department and hospital officials said.

The train, with two engines, 14 cars and a three-member crew, was traveling north to Oceanside, and the woman was walking in the same direction, Martin said.

There have been nine fatalities along the tracks in North County since October, 1990, Martin said.