Teen dies playing chicken with Amtrak train

[Liberal_in_LA]

Teen dies playing chicken with train

A 15-year-old boy was struck and killed by an Amtrak train while playing a game of chicken in San Lorenzo, authorities said Friday.

Austin Price of Hayward was hit by a northbound Capitol Corridor train near Lewelling Boulevard and Via Granada about 6 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.

Austin and two teenage friends were playing chicken with the train at a crossing near San Lorenzo High School, said Alameda County sheriff's Deputy April Luckett. The two other teens weren't hurt.

"It's very important that kids realize how dangerous the tracks are, that parents reiterate that to their children," Luckett said.

People shouldn't walk on the tracks for any reason, she said, "especially not to play games."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Teen-dies-playing-chicken-with-train-4429851.php#ixzz2QHLLCboq

[OnyxCollie]

1. Trains don't swerve.

Playing chicken with a train leads to predictable results.

[FSogol]

5. He wasn't playing chicken with the train, he was playing it with his friends.

Two kids stand on separate rails as a train approaches with a 3rd kid further down the track to judge. Winner is the kid who jumps away last. You are right about predictable results.

[olddots]

2. really sad

it was always a story kids told to each other 50 years ago about playing chicken on the tracks.

[MineralMan]

3. Another sad Darwin incident.

15-year-olds can be as dense as depleted uranium.

[sakabatou]

4. Sad and stupid.

[Walk away]

6. This is why teenagers are a danger to themselves and others...

their brains switch off! Even the smartest and coolest ones spend some time in Crazy Stupid Land.

It's good to remind them of how dangerous life can be but they all have a point where nothing you say to them makes any difference. It's a miracle so many of us make it into (what passes for) adulthood.

[bunnies]

7. a friend of mines teenage daughter...

lost her foot when she decided to skip school and lay on the tracks to get sun. She was lucky though, her friend lost both feet.

[RebelOne]

9. Why would anyone lie on railroad tracks for any reason?

Sorry for that girl's loss.

[bunnies]

11. Her explanation...

"It's not like it's such a bad thing that we go on [the tracks], because everyone does," says Rachel, who was 14 then. "Like people every day go on those tracks — go jumping off of it, they go in the water, sit on there and go fishing. It's not, like, out of the blue."

The girls lay down between the train tracks — Destiny, who was 13 at the time, on her right side and Rachel on her left side. They put their heads on Rachel's bag and fell asleep.

"We were like wicked tired and we didn't really mean to," Destiny says. "But we were just laying down and talking and everything."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100875845

*sigh *

Correction - her friend half a leg... not both feet. I remembered it wrong.

[Brickbat]

8. Thoughts to the cab crew.

Special thoughts to the engineer.

[kestrel91316]

10. Very sad for the family. He gets a Darwin Award.