A young woman is dead after tripping in front of a locomotive she was trying to beat in a bid to save as little as 20 seconds, police say.
The 20-year-old was with her younger sister and friend on the south side of Denison Rd., in the Weston Rd. and Jane St. area, when a barricade came down around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Toronto Police Sgt. Tim Burrows said.
"For one reason or another they circumvented those arms and as they began crossing the tracks, the victim fell and was run over by the locomotives," Burrows said. "Her foot, it wasn't stuck, but she tripped on the track."
The girl's sister called her father, who came to the scene and identified her body, Burrows said.
"What they were trying to get around by going quicker and under the barricades was two locomotive engines and that's it. There was no train," Burrows said. "There were just two engines and that's all they had to wait for, like 20 seconds. That lack of waiting 20 seconds cost one of them her life.
"This is just a really stark realization of why those laws are in place," he said. "For most of us it just seems second nature that you wait for those barricade arms to come back up. This is a case where this is why they're there. You have to obey it to avoid this kind of tragedy."
The death occurred with only a day left in Safe Crossing Week 2008.
The initiative -- co-sponsored by Safe Kids Canada and CN -- is aimed at stressing the importance of railway crossing safety and the need to stay away from trains.
Across Canada, 84 people were killed in incidents involving trains last year.
In Ontario alone, 44 people were killed in 2007, up from 43 the year before.
There are more than 73,000 km of track throughout the country and 55,000 railway crossings.
