Train Accidents Help
July 20, 2007Chicago-area railroad crossing accident still remembered
The Fox River Grove grade crossing accident was a bus/train collision that killed seven students in Fox River Grove, Illinois on October 25, 1995.At 7:10 that morning, a Metra train, traveling approximately 50 mph, made impact with the back of a school bus carrying students to Cary-Grove High School. The railroad accident occurred at the intersection of Algonquin Road, Northwest Highway (U.S. Highway 14) and a double-tracked mainline that belonged to Union Pacific Railroad. The impact separated the body from the chassis of the bus and knocked the wreckage into the intersection. Five students were instantly killed and two others would later die from their injuries. Another 21 were injured, some critically. Most of the victims suffered blunt trauma and head injuries: skull fractures, internal injuries and lacerations.
The accident stands as the worst accident involving a Metra train in its history, and one of the worst grade crossing accidents in U.S. history. A small marker was placed at the spot in memory of the seven students (between the ages of 14 and 18) killed in the accident: Jeffrey J. Clark, Susanna Guzman, Michael B. Hoffman, Stephanie Fulham, Joseph A. Kalte, Shawn P. Robinson and Tiffany Schneider.
Lawsuits were filed a month after the crash, and the last of which was resolved in January 2004. A total of $27.3 million was paid to the victims; of this amount, the school district paid $16.2 million, as school districts are held responsible for the actions of their drivers. The Union Pacific Railroad and Metra paid $7 million. Engineering contractors and the Illinois Department of Transportation settled for $3.2 million and $750,000, respectively.