Police dashcam video released last week shows a squad vehicle and two SUVs narrowly avoiding a Metra train last month after a crossing gate malfunctioned.
The near-miss with inbound Rock Island District Train 506 happened about 8:45 a.m. on Nov. 9 at 191st Street in the southwest suburb, according to Metra officials and Mokena police.
The train was between the Front Street and Hickory Street stations when the crossing gates and lights failed to activate, Metra spokeswoman Katie Dahlstrom said.
Mokena Police Officer Peter Stanglewicz — one of the drivers who just barely dodged the barreling train — captured the encounter on his dashcam.
“The Village of Mokena is thankful that there were no injuries to Officer Stanglewicz or any other motorists as a result of this unfortunate event,” Mokena Police Chief Steven Vaccaro said.
Video shows Stanglewicz driving west on 191st toward the crossing alongside an SUV, with another SUV approaching the tracks from the other direction.
As the train speeds into view, Stanglewicz quickly veers left across a raised median to avoid a collision. No one was hurt.
“Throughout my life, I’ve had very little luck,” Stanglewicz wrote in a Facebook post accompanying the video. “Little did I know, I had luck, I was just saving it all up for the perfect time. Here is all my luck being used ALL AT ONCE. If I never win anything again, I’m perfectly fine with that.”
The officer did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday.
Dahlstrom said the problem was caused by an electrical short in the crossing gate. The end of the dashcam video appears to show a repair crew on the other side of the tracks, as the gate finally comes down well after the train has passed.
A Metra employee who was already nearby to investigate earlier reports of a failed track circuit immediately began to investigate the gate failure, while the crew from the train notified Metra about the malfunction to get a repair personnel dispatched, according to Metra spokeswoman Sylvia Cooper. The gate was fixed by 3:40 p.m. that day.
During the repairs, precautions were put into place to prevent trains from crossing until the street was clear, Dahlstrom said. A crew member would get off each approaching train to stop vehicles from crossing the tracks, and trains would cross at a reduced speed.
“We take these incidents very seriously, which is why we had an immediate response on the scene,” Dahlstrom said.
A 1995 crossing-gate malfunction left seven high school students dead in northwest suburban Fox River Grove when their school bus was hit by a Metra express train.
The tragedy spurred dozens of multimillion-dollar lawsuits, many of which were settled outside of court.
A family won $55 million in a 2002 lawsuit after the lights and gates failed at a Bloomingdale intersection and a freight train slammed into their SUV.
And in 2005, 16 people were hurt when a Metra train slammed into five vehicles caught on Elmwood Park tracks. Investigators initially suspected a gate malfunction, but federal authorities later blamed drivers for “being in a place they shouldn’t have been” during a rush-hour traffic jam.
