Driver killed when vehicle falls from railroad bridge
SUV somehow enters Norfolk Southern span
Investigators are trying to determine how a woman managed to drive onto a railroad bridge Thursday in Pittsburgh before her sportutility vehicle veered off and plummeted 70 feet into the Ohio River below.
The woman, who had not been identified as of Thursday night, was dead by the time rescue divers got to her heavily damaged vehicle, upside down in 18 to 20 feet of water. She is believed to have been alone in the SUV.
The incident occurred about 2:10 p.m. on a Norfolk Southernowned bridge that extends from Esplen, above Brunots Island and into the Marshall-Shadeland section of the city.
“The Allegheny County 911 center received a variety of calls of a [vehicle] that had driven off the railroad bridge and basically fell into the water,” said Wendell Hissrich, the city’s public safety director.
Several bystanders witnessed the incident and called authorities, and Pittsburgh River Rescue crafts immediatelyresponded. River Rescue divers were hampered by murky water and had to conduct their search by feel.
“Eventually, we did find the vehicle,” said Raymond Everitt, a River Rescue division chief. “It was upside down.”
Rescuers broke a window to remove the woman, and her body was taken ashore in a River Rescue boat. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office will perform an autopsy.
A cat that authorities believe may have been in the vehicle was found swimming near the crash site. It was saved by people on a ferry boat and turned over to Pittsburgh Animal Control.
It was not immediately clear how or why the vehicle was on the railroad bridge.
“That’s going to be part of the investigation,” Mr. Hissrich said.
David Pidgeon, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, said the bridge is heavily used by trains.
“It’s a critical bridge for us because it connects our Monongahela line, which comes from
southwest Pennsylvania into Pittsburgh, and our main lines that go east-west. We drive train traffic across that bridge and it gives us several different routing options,” Mr. Pidgeon said.
Trains continued to use the bridge as investigators worked below.
“Railroad-relatedvehicles are permitted on the bridge, but not non-railroad,” Mr. Pidgeon said. As for the vehicle that flew off the bridge, “It was not a Norfolk Southern-related vehicle.”
He said the distance from the bridge deck to the water is 70 feet.
Asked how a vehicle would be able to access the bridge, Mr. Pidgeon referred the question to city police, who would say only that they were investigating.
The Norfolk Southern tracks go through Pittsburgh’s South Side. They parallel the Monongahela and Ohio rivers before turning across the bridge.
The span has a wye on the Marshall-Shadelandside that allows trains to head northwest toward Beaver County or southeast into Pittsburgh’s North Side. The line istraveled daily by many coal and freight trains.