Man Hit by Train in Apparent Suicide

A 33-year-old man was struck and killed by an Amtrak passenger train in Ventura early Friday in what authorities said was a suicide.

After lying down on the railroad tracks, Kip William Evans told a stranger that he was not going to budge and would let the train run him over, according to the witness. Evans died instantly.

The train, from San Luis Obispo, was delayed for almost three hours after the 8 a.m. accident, said Dominic Albano, an Amtrak spokesman.

Coroner’s officials and investigators for Southern Pacific Railroad spent much of the morning investigating the accident.

Witness Donald Hess, 40, said he was riding his bicycle to work when he saw the man lying across the tracks east of Chrisman Street near Ocean Park.

The man was on his side facing the Ventura train station where a train had stopped. His head was on one rail and his feet were across another, Hess said.

Hess said he tried to talk him off the tracks, warning him that a train would be coming down the tracks soon, but the man would not move.

“I tried to get him off the tracks and all he said was ‘ain’t nobody got anything coming.’ I tried to grab him and he didn’t want to budge,” Hess said. “He wanted to do this. That’s what he wanted to do.”

Hess rode to the San Buenaventura State Beach ranger station to call the police, but as he was making the call he heard the train. It was about 8 a.m., he said.