3 Injured as Train Strikes Car in Placentia

Three people were injured--two critically--when their car tried to beat a train across the tracks in Placentia on Monday, a crash that renewed calls to make the city’s railroad crossings safer.

“We see people driving around the gates all the time here,” Placentia’s public works director Christopher Becker said Monday. “Something needs to be done to separate the vehicles from the trains. Today’s accident was totally avoidable.”

Becker said there have been three other train-related crashes in Placentia, including a fatality, in the last two years. The latest crash occurred at Jefferson Street and Orangethorpe Avenue.

Police said that about 7 a.m., an Amtrak train smashed into a Mercedes-Benz near the driver’s side door, snapping the frame and knocking it back into one of the crossing arms near a telephone pole. The train came to a complete stop about a quarter-mile west of Jefferson Street.

The 258 passengers and five crew members aboard the Los Angeles-bound train were not injured.

Investigators said the driver of the Mercedes was westbound on Orangethorpe Avenue, driving parallel with the train, when the car suddenly turned left to southbound Jefferson Street, cutting through lowered railroad gates in an attempt to beat the train.

“Any time you try to circumvent the safety devices you’re going to lose every time, period,” said Orange County Fire Authority spokesman Scott Brown.

Officials said Adroushan Khemmo, a 10-year-old from Venezuela, was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where he was being treated for serious head injuries. Another victim, the boy’s uncle, Agob Khemmo, 50, of Yorba Linda, who was driving the car, was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he was listed in extremely critical condition Monday night. He underwent surgery to remove his liver, spleen and an eye.

The third victim, Hraj Khemmo, 48, Agob’s brother and the boy’s father, was listed in stable condition Monday night at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Anaheim Hills. He was being treated for shoulder and leg injuries, spokeswoman Nancy Francis said.

Hraj Khemmo told police in an interview at the hospital that he was asleep in the front passenger seat at the time of the crash and that the next thing he remembered was the collision. He told investigators the three were headed to a relative’s house in Fountain Valley, said Placentia Police Department spokesman Matt Reynolds.

He did not say if they were rushed, Reynolds said.

He said he and his son were in Orange County to visit relatives during the holidays.

Amtrak officials said the train began its trip in Chicago on Dec. 26. They said the flashing crossing lights were working, and that the engineer blew the train’s horn several times in an attempt to warn the driver of the Mercedes.

“That’s a 79-mph zone there,” said Amtrak spokesman Dominick Albano. “If there’s a car there, there’s not much else the train can do.”

One witness wasn’t surprised when he heard the crash.

“When I heard the smack, I knew somebody was trying to beat the train,” said Lyle Harn, 50, a worker at All-Ford Auto dismantler near the crash scene. “I ran out there, and the train just blew them right off the tracks. They were probably trying to beat the train on their way to work. Train crashes are pretty common here.”

Because more than 50 trains travel the Orangethorpe railroad corridor every day, city officials conducted a study recently to consider ways to prevent accidents at Placentia’s nine railroad crossings. A preliminary cost estimate of lowering the railway tracks is about $275 million, Becker said.

The Orangethorpe corridor project could take more than 10 years to complete, Becker said. But he said he believes the project will be completed just in time as traffic on the railroad is expected to rise to between 80 and 100 trains a day.

There may be more potential for accidents, Becker said.

“It seems that the public is more and more impatient,” he said. “Wherever they have to wait in any traffic situation, there’s potential for something like this to happen.”

A contractor has started installing traffic lights at several intersections along Orangethorpe Avenue and the railroad tracks to prevent accidents, said Becker.

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Proposed Railroad Crossing Change

Three people were injured--two critically--when their car tried to beat an Amtrak train across the tracks in Placentia on Monday. The crash renewed calls to make the city’s railroad crossings safer.

Earlier this year, the city proposed a $275-million plan to lower the track along a five-mile stretch of Orangethrope Avenue, where nine streets cross the tracks. Here is how it would look:

* Street continues above tracks, without need for elevated overpass or underpass

* Street “bridges” would be reinforced underneath with steel beams