A Fort Worth teenager was hit and killed by a freight train early Thursday morning while walking on railroad tracks.
His name has not been released to the public but friends who knew him are in disbelief.
“It’s just awful,” said Korey Hasty, who is a friend of the victim. “I could hardly breathe when I first knew.”
“I couldn't’t stand, I could hardly breath and just fell,” said Tristan Fenn, who was another friend of the victim.
That was the reaction from two of the victims’ friends when they got word that the teen, who is described as a 15-year-old Hispanic boy, had been killed.
“He was walking in the middle of the railroad tracks,” said Sargent Raymond Bush with the Fort Worth Police Department. “He was walking directly in front of the train with his back to the train and did not react when the train hit the emergency air horns.”
Police believe the teenager might have been wearing ear phones, possibly listening to music on his way to school. Friends of the victim said he does not normally walk on the tracks.
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“I don’t see why it would be him,” said Fenn.” He’s not normally like that.”
A Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train with about 115 cars loaded with coal hit the teen just south of the Interstate-20 overpass near McCart Avenue.
Many of the students at South Hills High School heard about the accident by lunch time.
“People couldn't’t breathe, they were crying, there was a lot of care, counselors were there,” said Hasty. “Everybody that knew him gathered in the library.”
