MOTORBIKE-TRAIN CRASH
Remote Site Eluded Rescuers
It took a crew at least 45 minutes to reach the scene.
By Gabrielle Finley
The Ledger
[email protected]
LAKELAND -- CSX engineer Craig Barnes said he called 911 just seconds after the freight train he was driving in northwest Polk County collided with Forrest Goff's motorbike Wednesday afternoon.
But it took emergency workers at least 45 minutes to get to the scene of the accident, where Goff, 34, of Brooksville, was eventually declared dead, EMS records show.
The delay appeared to stem from the remote location of the crash, which took place at about 12:15 p.m., three miles south of County Road 54 near the PolkPasco line. The area is swampy and lacks access roads. It is sometimes used by motorcycle riders, like Goff, area residents said.
Barnes said when he called 911, seconds after the collision, a Pasco County operator answered, and he began to tell her what happened.
"I advised them to send a helicopter because swamp surrounded the railroad," he said. "There's no other way to get to the accident.
"She kept asking me what county I was in," Barnes recalled. "I said I didn't know, but it doesn't matter what county it was."
Barnes said he called several times, telling the same Pasco County operator what happened and told her that Goff was still conscious for some time after the collision.
"It was such a mass of confusion on their part," he said.
According to Pasco County EMS records, a Pasco County rescue crew was finally dispatched at 12:48 p.m. A Pasco County Fire Engine was the first to arrive at a nearby railroad crossing at CR 54 at 1:05 p.m.
After the emergency crew reached the crossing, they had to hike three miles to the scene of the collision. It's not clear when the Pasco rescue workers actually reached Goff.
In fact, it was a Polk County rescue crew, dispatched at 1:13 p.m., that actually declared Goff dead at 1:55 p.m., according to EMS records. That crew arrived at a Kathleen Road rail crossing 10 minutes after being dispatched, records show. The Polk County rescuers approached the accident scene from the opposite direction of the hiking Pasco crew by using a CSX rail truck.
Pasco County supervisors were not available Thursday to comment on the response to the crash, communications workers said.
Polk's rescue workers arrived first, but the exact time remains unclear. Goff was declared dead at 1:55 p.m., more than 90 minutes after the collision. Barnes, who was driving the 6,500-foot-long freight train, said Thursday that he first saw Goff about 100 feet ahead of him on the eastern edge of the tracks, on top of the edges of wooden railroad ties and gravel that flank train tracks.
Barnes recounted bleating his "ear-deafening" horn and engaging the train's emergency brake as he approached from behind. Yet Goff seemed not to hear the approaching train.
"I never saw the guy look back," Barnes said.
He said the train was moving at 47 mph at the time of the collision, which threw Goff from his bike and away from the tracks. It took the train at least a quarter mile to stop, according to Barnes and Florida Highway Patrol reports.
The CSX freight train was pulling 107 freight cars behind it, stretching more than a mile, Barnes said.
"That's about 7,000 tons of train," the engineer said. "That's what made it so hard to stop."
Barnes said in this situation he did everything by the book.
Still, thinking about the confusion and delays in responding to the crash, Barnes said he felt a little better when a Polk County emergency official told him that Goff probably could not have been saved because of the force of the collision.
"There was nothing we could do," Barnes said.