Sandoval is believed to have tried to ‘beat the train’
Morgan Hill – An 18-year-old Morgan Hill man was killed Wednesday night after he was struck by a Union Pacific freight train at the Caltrain station near the corner of Depot and Second streets.
Victor Adrian Sandoval suffered fatal injuries as he was attempting to jump the tracks in front of the northbound train traveling at a moderately fast rate of speed.
The train engineer called police to report the train had struck Sandoval at approximately 10:11pm.
Morgan Hill police Cmdr. Joe Sampson said Sandoval was with friends near the skate park that backs up to the station parking lot on the east side of the tracks and apparently decided to cross in front of the train towards downtown Morgan Hill despite the warning signals at the nearby pedestrian crosswalk.
Sampson said as Sandoval leaped, the front of the train caught his trailing leg, causing him to spin back toward the train, colliding with it.
“One thing our officers would tell people who think about trying to beat a train, either by driving around the crossing guards or jumping the tracks, is that it generally leads to a fatal situation,” he said. “It is the victim that exercises poor judgment. There is no judgment issue on the part of the train or the conductor; the train is just driving straight through. It’s very simple, they need to understand they are not invincible.”
Sampson said Morgan Hill police officers first were called to a report of a fight near the tracks and saw several people running from the area when they arrived. There was also a group of people who appeared to have been drinking. Officers then learned that a pedestrian was struck by a train and cordoned off the scene. They found Sandoval’s body lying on the west side of the tracks inside the fenced area next to the small parking lot on the Depot Street side of the tracks.
One of the victim’s shoes was lying several feet from his body, which officers covered with a light-colored blanket.
Just before the call from the train conductor, MHPD dispatchers received a call about a fight between juveniles in the area, but Sampson said initial investigations show there was no fight, just a group of people drinking together at the skate park.
“They were loud, I’m sure, but we don’t believe they were fighting,” he said. “We don’t get a lot of calls out there, we haven’t had a lot of enforcement action or issues at night, but I would imagine, since there’s really no nearby homes and it’s a little bit dark, that teens might tend to gravitate there.”
Some of the officers on the scene who saw people running from the station on Second Street, followed the suspects, because they appeared to be intoxicated, yelling and punching structures. Sampson said they were acting out due to grief over Sandoval’s death, but when a 16-year-old male tried to fight officers attempting to calm him down, he was arrested and later released to a parent.
Witnesses at the scene of the accident, believed to be friends or at least acquaintances of the victim, were contained by MHPD officers in the small Depot Street parking lot near the closed Ya Bon coffee shop.
They huddled together in grief, alternately crying and yelling, comforting each other and occasionally hitting the parking lot light poles with their fists.
“Right now, we just need to separate them, get them calmed down, so we can find out what happened,” Sampson said late Wednesday.
More than 10 MHPD officers were called in to assist, as well as a police chaplain and several Sheriff’s Office deputies.
The investigation is continuing, Sampson said, and the Union Pacific Railroad Police Department will be conducting a concurrent investigation.
Morgan Hill police Sgt. David Swing said Thursday that there is no indication that Sandoval’s death was a suicide.
“We have talked to three people who were present at the scene and others who knew him, and there was no indication of depression or despondency,” Swing said. “It looks like an unfortunate accident brought on by alcohol … There was a recently broken bottle of alcohol in the parking lot and another unfinished one found laying on the tracks.”
The toxicology reports are not complete, Swing said, so there is no proof Sandoval was impaired.
“We don’t know for sure if in fact Mr. Sandoval was drinking,” Swing said, “but the people there at the scene that he was associating with had been drinking. It seems to be an unfortunate accident caused by alcohol and the invincible spirit that many teenagers have.”
The last fatal train accident in Morgan Hill was in January of this year, when 18-year-old Jackie Gamboa was thrown from a pickup driven by her boyfriend, Nathan Schrock, who tried to beat an Amtrak train and drove around the crossing guards. The train struck the pickup, and Gamboa was killed.
The community is impacted by these kinds of accidents, particularly when teens and young adults are involved, Sampson said.
“These kinds of situations are always difficult to put into words, the impact not only on the family and friends, but also the officers and rescue personnel that respond and the larger community,” he said. “It’s very hard to deal with these deaths of young people.”
A MHPD chaplain responded to the scene to offer assistance to witnesses and officers alike, and Sampson said that in this kind of situation, the department holds a critical incident stress debriefing within 72 hours. A chaplain is again available, as well as a police psychologist to help officers walk through the emotions of the events.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at md****@*************es.com.
