This Day In History

Jun 6 1968
Senator Robert F. Kennedy dies at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. The Democratic lawmaker had been campaigning for his party's Presidential nomination when he was shot three times by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan.

Jun 6 1981
An Indian passenger train traveling between Mansi and Saharsa jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing, submerging 11 compartments beneath the Bagmati river. Although the government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing, the actual figure is more like 1,000 killed.

Jun 6 1991
For robbing a Las Vegas video store five weeks earlier, a judge gives former Diff'rent Strokes child star Dana Plato a six-year suspended sentence. Plato's haul from the caper was $164, which she obtained by brandishing a pellet gun at the clerk.

Jun 6 1997
During her senior prom, New Jersey teenager Melissa Drexler gives birth to a healthy baby in a bathroom stall. She then strangles the child with a plastic bag and severs the umbilicus with the sharp edge on the tampon dispenser. After stashing the corpse in the trash, Drexler returns to prom and proceeds to eat a salad, request a Metallica song, and dance.

This Day In History

Jun 4 1939
After already having been turned away by Cuba, the SS St. Louis is also denied permission to land in Florida. So it is forced to return to Europe with its cargo of 963 Jewish refugees, most of whom will later die in Nazi concentration camps.

Jun 4 1989
645 rail passengers are killed in a natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia. Their two trains are torn apart as they pass each other, throwing sparks near a leaky pipeline.

This Day In History

May 6 1853
Ignoring signals, a train travels through an open drawbridge and into the Norwalk river in Connecticut, killing 46 passengers. The engineer and crew jumped clear, not warning the others of their fate.

May 6 1937
Zeppelin Hindenberg explodes at Lakehurst NJ, leaving 36 dead and others seriously burned. Official cause of the explosion is listed as "St. Elmo's Fire," although it probably also involved the flammable silver paint the Germans used to coat the thing.

Two-in-one-day:

May 6 1993
Disgruntled postal worker Mark Richard Hilburn (recently fired) enters the Dana Point, CA post office and shoots two former coworkers, killing one.

May 6 1993
Disgruntled 27-year veteran Lawrence Jasion enters the garage area of the Dearborn, Michigan post office and whips out a .38 revolver. He proceeds to kill mechanic Gary Montes and wound two other coworkers. Before anyone can react, Jasion then blows his brains out. The Dearborn office was infamous for its authoritarian policies.

Six Killed in Washington-Area Metro Train Collision

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A rush-hour collision Monday between two Metro trains north of downtown Washington, D.C., killed at least six people and injured scores, Mayor Adrian Fenty said.

He called it the deadliest crash in the history of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, known as Metro. One of the dead was the female operator of one of the trains, Metro officials said.

Some three hours after the accident, fire department sources said rescue operations had ceased, with ongoing work focusing on recovery. Officials believed there were two more bodies to be extricated, in addition to the four dead already removed, the sources said.

The crash happened just before 5 p.m. on an above-ground track on the Red Line in the District of Columbia near the border with Takoma Park, Maryland.

Seventy people were treated at the scene -- 56 with minor injuries, 12 with moderate injuries and two with life-threatening injuries, according to Chief Dennis Rubin of Washington's Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department.

Both trains were on the same track, and one of them was stationary when the crash happened, said John Catoe, Metro general manager.

Video footage of the scene showed two cars of one train lying atop the cars of another train. Emergency personnel carried injured passengers, some on stretchers, from the wreckage.

"Metro officials do not know the cause of the collision and are not likely to know the cause for several days as the investigation unfolds," a Metro statement said.

Fire department personnel cut through the trains to help people from the wreckage, officials said at a press briefing.

Jodie Wickett, a nurse who was a passenger on one of the trains, said she was was texting on her phone when she felt a bump.

"About 5-10 seconds later, the train came to a complete halt -- we went flying," Jodie Wickett said.

She said she went through some of the cars, trying to help people.

"There was debris and people pinned underneath," she said.

Ten to 15 minutes passed before she saw emergency personnel, she said.

Groups of people wearing green plastic ribbons to show they had been checked by paramedics left the scene about 90 minutes after the crash. Some were crying, and a woman with her arm in a sling who gave her name as Tijuana described the crash as "an earthquake."

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, NTSB spokeswoman Bridget Serchak said.

At least two FBI officials were at the scene, and the FBI confirmed it was assisting as part of the National Capital Response Squad.

Amy Kudwa of the Department of Homeland Security said "at this early stage," there was no indication of anything other than an accidental collision.

"We will continue to monitor closely and provide support in any way needed," Kudwa said.

It was the second Metro crash to involve fatalities in the 33-year history of the transit authority. In January 1982, a derailment killed three people. The only other collision between Metro trains occurred in 2004.

"We are extremely saddened that there are fatalities as a result of this accident, which has touched our Metro family," Catoe said in a statement.

"Our safety officials are investigating, and will continue to investigate until we determine why this happened and what must be done to ensure it never happens again."

One Reported Dead After Raleigh Train Wreck

Raleigh, N.C. — One person is dead after an Amtrak train struck a car on a Raleigh railroad track late Tuesday morning, an Amtrak representative says.

The train was traveling from Charlotte to New York when it struck the car near Royal and Hillsborough Streets.

The fatality was from the car, the Amtrak spokesman said. There were no reports of injuries on the train.

The train was carrying 191 people, including 23 students and five adults from a Durham day camp.

Further details were not immediately available, but a man traveling nearby at the time said he heard a horn and then a loud smack. The car was thrown about 50 feet from the train crossing into the woods, he said.

Stay tuned to WRAL News at Noon and WRAL.com for more on this developing story.

Unruly Dog Drags Owner To Tragic Train Death

SO sad..

HAYWARD, Calif. -- A woman was struck and killed by a Capital Corridor train in Hayward when the dog she was walking dragged her onto the tracks and into the path of the oncoming locomotive, according to authorities.

The fatal accident took place just hours after a pedestrian died from being struck by an Amtrak train in Berkeley.

According to Alameda County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. J.D. Nelson, at about 2:15 p.m. two people with a dog were attempting to cross the tracks ahead of an approaching train just north of the Hayward Station near the intersection of West Blossom Way and Meekland Avenue.

"The crossing guards were down. The gentleman was able to make it through," Nelson explained. "She tried to stop, realizing she probably couldn’t make it and the dog dragged itself and her into the train."

Amtrak's Capitol Corridor train No. 535, bound for San Jose, was likely traveling at approximately 70 miles per hour when it struck and instantly killed both the woman and the dog, a pit bull.

Nelson said the woman, in her early-to-mid 30s, was unable to simply let the dog go because of how she had the leash wrapped around her hand.

A number of distraught family members were on the scene of the crash early Thursday evening. Family members identified the woman as 31-year-old Vida Silver. Relatives told KTVU Silver and the 100-pound pit bull named Mama were inseperable.

"Her dog was her baby. Everywhere she went, the dog went," said Silver's cousin Tonya Neves. "The dog was always there."

Woman Survives Apparent Train Suicide

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli woman laid herself on the tracks just before a train roared through a crossing in an apparent suicide attempt. But seconds after the train passed, she got up and walked away almost unhurt.

The incredible scene was captured on the closed circuit security TV system at the Kfar Vitkin level crossing in Israel's north.

The video shows the woman calmly approaching the tracks and lying down between them. The train passes over her at high speed, and then she gets up, picks up her shoes and walks to her car.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Tuesday that two days after the bizarre event, police have not yet found the woman. Rosenfeld speculated that she was attempting suicide or mentally unbalanced.