Coroner: Mo. teens killed by train were playing game

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

By JIM SALTER

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Two Missouri girls struck and killed by an Amtrak train were playing a deadly game, a coroner said Tuesday.

Union Pacific Railroad Special Agent Steve Ray looks for debris along a rail line just north of Poplar Bluff on Tuesday, after two teenagers were killed and another was injured when their vehicle was struck by an Amtrak train just after midnight. Fifteen-year-old Victoria Swanson and 17-year-old Haley Whitmer, both of Poplar Bluff, were killed. A third girl was airlifted to a Cape Girardeau hospital. The driver of the Jeep was not injured.

Butler County Coroner Jim Akers said the teens were playing a game called “Ghost Train,” in which a car is parked on the tracks, purportedly awaiting the arrival of a “ghost train” involved in a fatal derailment many years ago. Occupants let the windows fog up in the scary setting. If a train approaches, they drive off.

But Akers said that as the Amtrak train neared the 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee, the vehicle wouldn’t start. Three teens got out but two panicked and couldn’t unbuckle their seat belts. One returned and unbuckled the other girls and was still inside the Jeep when the train slammed into it.

“It’s crazy,” said Akers, who had never heard of the game before the accident. “It’s horrible. I really don’t have words yet. I wish I had some smart, poetic way of saying something to stop kids from doing things like this.”

The accident happened at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday at a railroad crossing near Poplar Bluff in southeast Missouri. The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified the girls who died as Victoria Swanson, 15, and Haley Whitmer, 17, both of Poplar Bluff.

Kaitlyn Fowler, 15, of Poplar Bluff, was hospitalized in critical condition after undergoing surgery.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said he had never heard of a game like “Ghost Train,” either. He said the Amtrak train had 188 passengers and about a dozen crew members. None of them were injured. The train was delayed about two hours.

Patrol spokesman Clark Parrott did not return messages seeking comment. A brief patrol report on the accident did not mention that the girls were playing a game.

But Akers said the surviving girls described the game, and parents of the victims said they were aware the girls had played “Ghost Train” previously.

The same apparent game, or a version of it, has been deadly before. In 2010, about a dozen men were standing on a railroad trestle in North Carolina playing “Ghost Train” when a real train rounded a bend. The others got off the track, but 29-year-old Christopher Kaiser was struck and killed.

According to a 2007 posting on the website strangeusa.com, the tale is that a train derailed many years ago (it wasn’t clear when or where), killing nearly everyone on board. The site claims a man was beheaded and a pregnant woman’s body found, but not the body of her unborn child.

“So once you get to the railroad track you pull onto the tracks and shut off your car,” the posting reads. “Your windows start to fog up very quickly and you can hear a train whistle in the background, it gets louder ... then stops. You will often also see a light when you look down the train tracks. While sitting in the car you will hear something tap on your window and if your (sic) brave enough to look outside a woman will be standing there asking you where her baby is. And for the extremely brave, if you decide to get out of your car you will see a decapitated man in the ditch searching for his head, many people have saw this (including myself).”

Akers said the teens had not been doing drugs or alcohol. They had told friends they were heading out Monday night to the tracks, he said.

“It’s hard to convince kids not to do the foolish things kids do,” the coroner said. “They think they’re indestructible.”

More like this story

sweet1 1 year ago

I remember when a friend and classmate from high school died on the train tracks in Jefferson City. I still think about it to this day. So sad.

tonto_goldberg 1 year ago

Sorry, sweet1. I know his family. It was pretty awful for them.

JCLifer 1 year ago

Darwin wins again.

gofish 1 year ago

I wonder if the train was on time before the accident?

linoge 1 year ago

People sometimes accuse me of being a "helicopter parent." In other words, I hover over my children and monitor their actions more than necessary. I stand guilty as charged. Part of my so-called problem is that I have a strong memory. I think back to the foolish things I did when I was that age and say to myself "Dear God, why weren't my parents watching over me?" I've had some close calls, including some involving trains. A great many humans do not develop a full sense of danger until they have passed through their teenage years. I hope I do not get into too much trouble for saying this, and others may disagree, but I personally do not approve of 15 year-old girls being out at 12:30 am. If this makes me a helicopter parent, so be it.

JCLifer 1 year ago

Agree with you, however, my 16 and 17 years would not have been nearly as fun if 15 year old girls were not allowed out late at night.

Silverado_Phil 1 year ago

Stupid is as Stupid does. The weak (and dumb) are weaned out of the herd. The strong and smart survive. Is it the childrens' fault for playing risky games? Or is it the parents' fault for not instilling better common sense in their children? To me it looks like a complete FAIL on the parents. Parents do not realize how much they "enable" their children to do what they do.

JMO 1 year ago

This is incredibly sad and I feel for the families, but this caught my attention. "parents of the victims said they were aware the girls had played “Ghost Train” previously." Really? I can't even imagine how long the grounding would have been if that had been my kid. It just boggles the mind that kids would even do this. Maybe I'm old, and I know I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was young, but I don't think I was ever foolish enough to do this.

Linoge, I agree with you about the time of night. My own son, only after turning 16, was given a 12:00 weekend curfew, 10:00 weeknight curfew. Before that it had been two hours earlier. On very special occasions we increase it. Even now with school out, he has to be home by 9:30, because we have to get up for work at 5:30 a.m. - and we don't go to bed until he's in, ever. If he's going to be a few minutes late, he better call or face the loss of driving privilges. A good number of his friends think we're too strict, worrier, stick-in-the-muds. I totally couldn't care less. He does enough stuff he probably shouldn't before midnight.

eileen10 1 year ago

I agree with Silverado and it angers me every time I see an adult with children in the vehicle run stop signs which happens a lot. Their teaching their children to break the law and to drive dangerously.

kentheco 1 year ago

I wonder how many lawyers have contacted the families and how much the game will end up costing the railroad.

tonto_goldberg 1 year ago

I believe that some of you more judgemental posters will have a lot to answer for eventually. Not everyone gets to be as strong, or as quick, or as lucky, or as smart as you seem to believe you are. I grew up in the country, and my friends and I walked on the railroad tracks and we crossed railroad bridges. I ran big farm equipment, and drove a car and a truck quite a bit before I had a license.

gofish 1 year ago

And your point is? Country people are weak, unintelligent, and unlucky? Probably not what you meant...but what you said. Hee Haw!

tonto_goldberg 1 year ago

I don't think so. Try to work on reading for comprehension. My friends and I all survived, except for one who got killed in Vietnam. Among the survivors are Ph.D's, business executives, military officers, and normal folks like myself.

We are at least as smart and at least as strong as the rest of you - including the one who died in Vietnam. He just ran out of luck one day. A comment like "weaning out the weak" isn't a valid explanation for accidental death. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time really makes a difference.

gofish 1 year ago

This was anything but an "accidental death". It was a PREVENTABLE death. They died because they lacked common sense, not because the situation was unavoidable. They stupidly made choices that put themselves in imminent danger of death.

tonto_goldberg 1 year ago

The kids in the car did not intend to die; they planned to start the car and drive away right before the train arrived. It's how the game is played. Several things went wrong on that railroad crossing, and it is the combination of those things that resulted in the deaths. These kids did not (could not) accurately assess the risk because they lacked the specific ability to predict a set of events that would prove deadly.

Life involves a lot of risk, and only some of that risk is avoidable. Most of us have to live with a lot of risk every day. Your life may be different, and you may choose to call your approach to life "common sense" but ti wouldn't work for everyone.

John 1 year ago

So Tonto seems to imply that this is, after all, only a game and, therefore, their deaths were only the costs of playing the game.

Actually, that is an incorrect picture. I abhor their deaths BUT their deats are indicators as to why (sometimes) LAWS are written/enacted. They were breaking the law and the terrible result is that they paid with their lives. The kids WERE old enough to know better (yes, as as child I did stupid things as well) and YES, it seems, from the article, the parents (some of them) knew their kids were doing this stupid "thing" and calling it a game.
Hmmmm, would you guys call it a game if one stood downrange with an apple on their head while their friend attempted to shoot it off with an arrow or a firearm? Good grief.

JCLifer 1 year ago

My buddies and I used to ride our dirt bikes between the rails down at Cole Junction when we were kids. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but the trains always blew their horns in plenty of time for us to stop and pick up our bikes and throw them over the rail to get out if the way.

JCLifer 1 year ago

Probably about as dangerous as flying 80 mph down the gravel roads in the river bottoms and a tractor or combine pulls out in front of us from behind the corn on a side road.
There is a big long list of dangerous stuff we used to do. It wasn't smarts that saved us. God, angels, dumb luck- something was watching over us.

tonto_goldberg 1 year ago

Precisely.

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