UPDATE:
ATKINS, Va. – A 4-year-old boy who was playing near the railroad tracks in his neighborhood died Thursday after being hit by a train in this small community north of Marion.
Late Thursday, using lights from the Atkins Fire Department, Smyth County Sheriff’s Office and Norfolk Southern Corp. investigators worked to reconstruct the incident.
Sheriff David Bradley said investigators believe the boy was hit by the step on the side of the train’s engine. He wasn’t run over by the train, but did die at the scene.
Bradley said they believe another child also was playing near the tracks, but apparently was not injured.
The 4-year-old boy was a resident of the mobile home park that is sandwiched between U.S. Highway 11 and the railroad tracks. About 70 units are in the neighborhood, spread over several parallel streets that dead-end near the railroad right of way. One of those streets is Jori Lane, just across U.S. 11 from the Atkins Church of God.
There is no fence between the mobile homes and the tracks.
Atkins Elementary School is just a way down the road in this community of about 1,100 people.
The boy who died lived on Jori Lane, in the second mobile from the tracks, roughly 30 yards from the embankment that leads to the railroad bed. Beyond that, on the other side of the tracks, is a steep, wooded hillside.
Bradley said the neighborhood is like family; nearly everyone living there is related.
“It’s just a bad trauma,” he said. “Everybody’s just been standing out here looking at the tracks. They’re in shock.”
Bradley said the parents ran outside as soon as they realized their child was missing. That’s when they saw the train stopped on the tracks.
The sheriff’s office was called at 6:57 p.m. The child was dead by the time police arrived.
Shortly after the accident, railroad engineers separated the westbound train, to permit access by emergency personnel.
Investigators halted their review about 10:30 p.m. Thursday, but said they would return in the morning. Sometime today, they planned to review the video footage from a camera mounted on the train.
Media General News Service reporters Dan Kegley and Mark Sage contributed to this report.
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
ATKINS, Va. – A 4-year-old child, who was apparently playing near the railroad tracks, died Thursday after being hit by a train in this small community north of Marion.
Late Thursday, using lights from the Atkins Fire Department, Smyth County Sheriff’s Office and Norfolk Southern Corp. investigators worked to reconstruct the incident.
Sheriff David Bradley said investigators believe James Lee Hardy, 4, was hit by the step on the side of the train’s engine. He wasn’t run over by the train, but died at the scene, the sheriff said.
Bradley said they believe another child also was playing near the tracks, but apparently was not injured.
Hardy was a resident of the mobile home park that is sandwiched between U.S. Highway 11 and the railroad tracks. About 70 units are in the neighborhood, spread over several parallel streets that dead-end on the railroad right of way. One of those streets is Jori Lane, just across U.S. 11 from the Atkins Church of God.
For more on this story, see Friday's Bristol Herald Courier.
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