On December 20, a massive derailment occurred in Tennessee and was caught on video.
A semi-truck carrying a huge, heavy load got stuck on the tracks and was hit by a freight train.
The tractor-trailer was carrying a 134-foot concrete truss bridge beam. The driver couldn’t clear the tracks in time.
After the collision with the tractor-trailer, the train derailed. The Collegedale Police Department shared updates with the public on Facebook.
Video of the wreck show several of the train cars turned over on their sides in a wooded area near the tracks.
Amy Maxwell, the spokesperson for the Hamilton County Emergency Medical Services, told media sources that the truck was headed to a new construction site and was carrying the huge concrete barrier.
The truck driver miraculously escaped injury.
Maxwell confirmed that when the Norfolk Southern train hit the construction truck, ten of its cars and three of its locomotives derailed, creating a huge mess.
Paramedics transported two members of the train crew to local hospitals with minor injuries.
Luckily no one was seriously hurt.
Authorities reported that the train was leaking diesel fuel after the derailment, but they determined that the spill was not a threat to local residents and did not require anyone to evacuate.
Several local witnesses recorded the footage on their phones and posted their videos, which went viral on Twitter, with tens of thousands of views in just a few hours.
Train crashes don’t happen often, but when they do, they cause major clean-up headaches and sometimes fatalities.
In September 2022, a train crashed into a police car near Platteville, Colorado, and caused brain injuries to a woman who was being detained in the back of the police car that was parked on the railroad tracks. An approaching train struck the vehicle and seriously injured the passenger.
In June, a train flipped over when it collided with a dump truck in Missouri, causing three fatalities.
