A woman was killed and her two young sons seriously hurt after she drove her van around crossing gates and was hit by a Metra Rock Island train on the South Side this morning, officials said.
"I saw the train drag the van down a little bit. It flipped and rolled," said Perry Logan, who helped pull the two boys from the smoking van after it was hit by the train at 115th Street and Marshfield Avenue around 8:15 a.m.
"I jumped out of the car and went to the van to see if everybody's OK," he said. "I heard little kids crying. They were in the backseat crying, 'Help me, help me. Mommy, mommy.' "
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene, and the boys were taken in serious-to-critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to Chicago Fire Department Chief Joe Roccasalva.
Logan said he was on his way to drop off his 5-year-old daughter at Curtis Elementary School nearby when he saw the gray van pull alongside.
"It was in front of me when we stopped. The gates were down and the driver started going around the gates. She kind of stopped and the train hit her," Logan said.
Running up to the van, he saw one of the boys trying to get out.
"But the seatbelt was wrapped around his leg. I pressed the unbuckle button and he got of the van. Then he was trying to pull his little brother out. He went back in and grabbed his brother's arms. I said, 'Hold on, let me help you.'
"Other people came around to help and we got the little boy out of the vehicle and laid him on the ground," Logan said, adding that the little boy couldn't stand and may have broken his leg. "He was grabbing my leg saying, 'Don't leave me, don't leave me.' He was trying to get up on his own but he couldn't.
"Then we checked on mama. She was still breathing in the front seat but there was no way to get to her. Everything was twisted up, glass everywhere. They tried to cut her out but she was dead before they could get her out," Logan said. "There was fire around the car and fire in the engine and gasoline everywhere. I was trying to get the kids away from there, make sure they were OK. They were asking where their mom was. I was trying to make sure they didn't see their mom."
The boys appeared to be between 5 and 7 and looked like they were dressed for school, he said. "I saw backpacks in the van."
Asked why he rushed to the van, Logan said "I got little kids myself, I wanted to make sure everything was OK. I didn't have time to think. I just hopped out of the car. First thing on my mind was, was everything OK?"
When he saw the boy trying to climb out of the van, "I was just happy he was alive. It was a miracle. He was walking. I thought, cool, he's OK. The second kid, my God, my heart dropped, he kept crying, 'My leg, my leg.'
"Tears came out, some things, you just got to cry."
Metra spokeswoman Meg Reile said the train's engineer and other witnesses also said the van drove around the gates. She said the train was likely moving at about its highest speed, 79 mph, and there was no way that it could have stopped before hitting the car.
The train had left Blue Island as scheduled at 8:10 a.m. and was on its way to the next stop at the Washington Heights station at 103rd Street when it hit the van, according to Reile. The line was closed for a time and reopened temporarily using an alternate line, she said. Service was restored around 9 a.m.
Reile said this is the 24th fatality involving a Metra train this year. All but four of those deaths have been pedestrians struck by trains, she said.
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