1 Killed, 30 Hurt When Train Hits Truck at Rural Crossing

One man died and another was critically injured Saturday when an Amtrak train collided with a truck and jumped off the tracks in an agricultural field near here.

Twenty-eight train passengers and one crew member sustained minor injuries in the crash, the latest and most serious in a series of train accidents at unprotected rural railroad crossings in Ventura County.

“The train was going 69 miles an hour and you just can’t stop these things on a dime,” said Sean Strong, the conductor. “There was no way we could have stopped.”

Carrying 84 passengers and four crew members, the train was headed from San Diego to Santa Barbara. At 12:14 p.m., it was rolling through bean fields west of Moorpark when it collided with a truck owned by Asplundh Tree Expert Co. at a farm road crossing just east of Hitch Boulevard.

The truck driver was killed. He was identified as Sergio Vargas Mendoza, 29, of Santa Paula, according to the county coroner’s office. He was married and the father of a 3-year-old boy.

His passenger, Julio Corona Munoz, 23, of Ventura was airlifted to Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where he was in critical condition with severe head injuries.

Three of the train’s five cars derailed. One turned onto its side; another tilted against an embankment.

As the train roared off the track, it raised a storm of dust and dirt clods. Passengers screamed.

“We were tossed around like a T-shirt in the dryer,” said a man being treated for minor injuries at Simi Valley Hospital.

Some people in the derailed cars scrambled out of windows and roof hatches. Injured train passengers were taken to local hospitals and most were released in a few hours. None of their injuries was serious.

Heather Crow, 21, of Long Beach was nodding off when she heard a deafening bang and was thrown forward.

“There was a lot of crying,” she said. “People jumped into the aisle, saying, ‘Oh my God, please don’t let it fall. . . . ‘ “

Ventura County Fire Department spokeswoman Sandi Wells said this was the fifth fatal accident in three years at crossings between Moorpark and Grimes Canyon Road. There are no mechanized gates in the area.

Amtrak spokesmen said it would be at least this morning before the wreckage was lifted out and the collision fully investigated. Until then, train traffic into Ventura County was halted.

Meanwhile, traffic on the Ronald Reagan Freeway between Somis and Tierra Rejada was being detoured to alternate routes. The adjacent freeway was being used as a staging area for emergency crews and heavy equipment to clear the train wreckage.

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Times staff writers Catherine Blake, Tina Dirmann and Margaret Talev and special correspondent Gail Davis contributed to this story.