Two Deaths in Two Days for CSX Employees
May 11, 2009
Corporate railroad operator CSX had its twelfth railroad employee fatality of the year occur Sunday, May 10th in Selkirk, New York. The incident involved thirty three year old Jared Boehlke, who was hit by a train while working in the CSX railroad yard.
Boehlke’s family has well established connections to the railroad. His uncle is a retired engineer, while his father and brother Dave are both conductors. The victim’s brother happened to be on duty at the time of the accident and accompanied his injured sibling Jared to the hospital in an ambulance.
It was the second death in three years at the Selkirk facility, the largest railroad marshalling yard in the Northeast. In 2006 an employee riding an ATV was struck by a train while crossing a set of tracks.
On Monday May 11th a CSX employee repairing warning lights at an intersection in Middleton PA was killed when he was hit by a tractor-trailer turning right. The lights had been damaged in an accident that had occurred earlier in the day, when a truck hit the light fixtures while attempting the same turn.
A CSX crew was in the area repairing tracks and fixtures along the CSX line; however none of the other employees witnessed the accident, they said, because they were working up the tracks, away from the intersection location. The victim was wearing all the proper safety clothing and orange cones were in place around the work site.
