Since 1988, six people have collided with trains at or near the Metra station in west Lake Forest. Here’s a summary of the accidents, in chronological order:
1988: A headline in the Jan. 14, 1988, Lake Forester reads “Act of heroism ends with 2 dead.” Reporter Reid Magney wrote that on Jan. 11, Ellen Dougherty, 28, of McHenry, was waiting in a co-worker's car on the west side of the tracks when she heard a train horn. She got out of the car, saying she had to catch her northbound train, and she rushed across the tracks at 4:45 p.m. She then fell down on the northbound track as the train approached. Christopher Bordeaux, 24, of Fox Lake, was standing on the east platform with a friend when he saw Ms. Dougherty fall. He ran to assist her, but the train was not a Metra slowing into the station. It was a high-speed express 11-car Amtrak Empire Builder, bound for Seattle, which was running late and was not scheduled to stop in Lake Forest. It normally passed through the station at 3:30 p.m. The train was traveling at 70 miles per hour and struck them both at the same time, having blown its whistle twice. The two were pronounced dead at the scene.
At the time of the 1988 accident, the west Lake Forest stop was a small, three-sided building at the site of the present-day fire station, according to Deputy Police Chief Glenn Burmeister.
1998: At 5:19 p.m. on March 19, Amtrak’s No. 7 struck and injured Katherine Hansen, 56, from Round Lake Beach, as she tried to cross the tracks at the former station in west Lake Forest. She was struck and injured by an Amtrak express heading north, which was not scheduled to stop at the station. Police said Ms. Hansen thought the approaching train was going to stop. She was not struck head-on; she suffered a broken leg and head injuries. Authorities quoted in media stories said she was lucky to survive the collision.
2003: An 11-year-old Lake Forest boy was walking home with a friend at 1:30 p.m. on April 19 when he was struck and killed by a freight train near the west Lake Forest depot.
2008: At 5:13 p.m. on Feb. 22, Round Lake resident Jean Hubbard McNeill was struck and killed by a northbound Amtrak train. News articles, memorials and current interviews with authorities indicate Ms. McNeill made a split-second decision to follow a pedestrian over the crosswalk despite the activated bells and lights. The other commuter made it across in time--Ms. McNeill, who authorities said was an inexperienced train rider, did not. She was 51 years old and served as assistant registrar for traditional undergraduate students at Trinity International University in Deerfield.
2009: On Dec. 10, Teresa Spradlin, 43, of Graylake, was struck and killed by Seattle-bound Amtrak No. 7 when she rushed across the pedestrian crosswalk to catch what she likely assumed was a Metra train that would take her home. Lake Forest police believe she had been waiting in the station on the west side of the tracks to avoid standing outside in the bone-chilling temperatures of 9 degrees Fahrenheit, and that she rushed across the tracks despite the fact that warning lights and bells had been activated to indicate an oncoming train—one that happened to be a delayed Amtrak traveling at 70 miles per hour. Two men on the platform were injured when Ms. Spradlin’s body struck them. They were taken to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, where they were treated and released.
Lake Forest College historian Arthur Miller helped research the information for this story