Emergency personnel on the scene Monday night. Below, the driver of the car was briefly trapped. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A North Jersey Coast Line train struck the the driver’s side of a car at a grade crossing in Red Bank Monday evening.
But the car’s driver, after being carefully extricated and readied for transport to a hospital, walked out of an ambulance refusing treatment, a witness tells redbankgreen.
The collision occurred at about 7:40 p.m. at the grade crossing at Drs. James Parker Boulevard, also known as West Bergen Place, near Maple Avenue.
It involved an Audi traveling eastbound on Parker and a southbound local to Long Branch, which was just leaving the Red Bank station less than a mile away, according to Nichelle Mountain of Oakhurst, who witnessed the crash as she sat at a red light on the opposite side of Maple Avenue.
“The gates were coming down, and the train kept beeping and beeping its horn, but she kept coming,” Mountain told redbankgreen.
Mountain said she saw the train plow into the car, but with less explosive force than she had anticipated, probably because the train had not attained much speed leaving the station.
The car appeared to have barely been moved down the tracks from the crossing lane, but it left the lead car of the train pressed up against the motor vehicle’s left side.
The driver, whose identity was not immediately available, was moved to a gurney by volunteer fire and first aid workers. But moments later, she was on her feet, refusing treatment, a witness said.
An official account of the accident was not immediately available.
