Widows: Union Pacific Railroad knew of defect before veterans killed in Midland

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-News+State/227533/widows-union-pacific-railroad-knew-of-defect-before-veterans-killed-in-midland

Published on Thursday, 26 November 2015 10:24 - Written by BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - Intensive care nurse Angie Boivin had just tended to a woman whose leg was severed near the hip when she saw her husband Larry lying nearby under an American flag blanket. She says that she was with him when he took his last breath.

Larry Boivin earned a Purple Heart in Iraq in 2004, but he didn't survive a Union Pacific freight train that slammed into the flat-bed trailer he and other veterans were riding on during a 2012 parade in Midland, Texas. Three other veterans died and more than a dozen people were injured in the crash three years ago this month.

"They used that (train) as a weapon to kill my husband," Angie Boivin said.

She and 42 other survivors and family members sued Union Pacific Railroad Co. for negligence, saying the railroad knew 10 months before the collision of a defect in the track detection circuitry, which delayed the activation of warning lights, bells and a crossing gate. The problem caused by that defect was further compounded, they allege, by a reduced crossing warning time set by the railroad in violation of a state agreement.

FULL story at link.

[marym625]

1. K&R!

I'm so sick of money trumping lives

[TwilightGardener]

2. If you're going to pull parade floats full of people across railroad tracks, you

should probably make better arrangements with the railroads first. Speaking as the wife of a freight conductor who has seen much stupidity at crossings in just a few years.