UPDATE: Suicide suspected in train death near Flood Avenue

Apr. 30—On Monday afternoon, the Norman Police Department investigated a suspected suicide at the intersection of Flood Avenue and Rock Creek Road where the railroad tracks cross.

First responders were at the scene before 1 p.m. in response to a fatality between a train and pedestrian.

According to Sara Schettler, department communications officer, the NPD concluded that the collision is a result of a suicide.

No other information has yet been released from the police department.

"Initial investigation and witness accounts indicate the pedestrian committed suicide by train," she said in a statement to The Transcript.

Cade Clark, a rail crew transport worker at BNSF heard the radio at the time of the event. He described the victim as a young Black man.

"The engineer of that train said over the radio that there was a young Black male early, mid 20s, who walked out in front of their train and laid his head on the tracks on the rail. There was just absolutely nothing they could do," Clark said.

He said the train involved was about 8,000 feet long with about 700 axles.

"It takes that train a while to stop. If somebody did that there's just absolutely zero that they can do about it," Clark said. "Typically, if a train is going about 50 or 60 miles an hour on the tracks, it'll probably take about a mile or two to stop. It just depends on where the engine of that train was located."

He said the train was heading southbound to Norman from the direction of Moore.

"It was just regular cargo — everything from storage crates to fluids. I actually watched it as it passed by my train because my train was heading northbound," he said. "Theirs was heading southbound. I watched that one pass by, and just as we were getting wrapped up at my side is when the emergency was called."

Norman has 17 railroad crossings in a span of 14 miles, and Clark said about eight people get killed by a train every year.

"It shouldn't be that way. But it is extremely common," he said. "The conductor and the engineer that I picked up yesterday both said that they've worked for the rail crew for 20-plus years each, and both of them have run over a dozen people just between Moore and Norman alone on that same rail line."

"They said that sometimes it's people that are tweaking out on drugs. Sometimes it's people that are just oblivious. It might be a high school kid with headphones walking down the track just not able to hear the train, and then most of the time it's going to be suicide by train."

He said suicide by train is not just fatal to the individual, but it is emotionally scarring for conductors who have to witness it.

"It's messed up to the train operators. There's just nothing that they can do. It's not a car. You can't swerve out of the way. You can't break in time," Clark said.

He said the police has concluded that the event was a suicide and that the conductor and engineer are not under investigation. However, the two are under investigation internally with BNSF to ensure that there was nothing more they could have done to prevent the accident.

"Those trains have cameras, so they'll be reviewing that footage from the train, and more than likely the conductor and engineer will be back on a train within a week or so," Clark said. "They're on paid leave at the moment."

Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.