4 Folks show you how to die at a RR crossing.

[HyperU2]

http://www.theledger.com/article/20070717/BREAKING/70717006/0/FRONTPAGE

 
Parental discretion advised: This article contains actual footage of the Amtrak crash that killed four Polk County young adults.

LAKELAND - Friends and family came to the West Lakeland train crossing where four young people died Monday.

Some picked through the debris that littered the tracks, looking for personal items of their loved ones killed when their car was hit by an Amtrak train.

A vigil will be held at 7 p.m. today at the crossing at Olive Street and Wabash Avenue.
Lakeland Police Department spokesman Jack Gillen said identities of the victims will be released as each is identified by the medical examiner.

The bodies were so disfigured they couldn't be identified immediately. "They attempted identification at the scene by tattoos and personal items, but these need to be made official,'' Gillen said

He said the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office and the police department are working to make the official identifications, although families have already revealed the names of some. "As soon as each is identified, we will release the name,'' he said.

Lakeland police released the names of all four victims Tuesday afternoon. They are Brian Guy, 22, Brittany Stickney, 18, Whitney Pressnell, 20, and Cecerra Lee Benafield, 20.

Official identifications are needed to allay fears of those even outside the state, although all four victims are local.

"With this now being in the national news we have had calls from out of state whose kids are in Central Florida, worried that they may have been in the accident,'' Gillen said.




Myspaces?  I don't really care.

[abbykatesmom]

God when the hell are people going to learn that if the gates are coming down.  YOU FUCKING WAIT!  What a waste.

My heart aches for their families and proves again that one bad split second decision can change the direction in which you life is headed or in this case...ends! 

RIP Brittany, Whitney, Ceccera and Brian. 

[LilDevil]

What a stupid driver.  I mean, what was the rush?

Driver:  Guys, we gotta try and beat the train or else we'll have to wait a couple of min. and damnit!  I  might miss the intro of "So You Think You Can Dance!!"

[death roe]

Brian Guy  :-o  :lol:    ...did anyone else go Tess...Bryan..Jared... Guy. Wrong thread.

[emotionsickness]

Wow and everyone just kept driving onto their destinations?? That's so weird.

RIP impatient teens ............ although it looked kind of strange...the gates were down, so were they just driving through the gates? If so, whyyyyy??? 

[WooFrigginHoo]

http://www.theledger.com/article/20070718/NEWS/707180427/1367



LAKELAND - Cindy Bebee walked between the rails, scouring the tracks across from Olive Street for any items left by her sister.

Near the gravel stained with blood, she walked as a friend collected a pile of broken CDs, a hair band and fragments of a letter.

"My sister is dead, and her 2-year-old daughter has to grow up without a mother," Bebee said in a wash of tears and anger.

"She was a good person. She loved her daughter."



Her sister, Brittany Nichole Stickney, 18, died Monday afternoon along with three others in a car in a horrific collision with an Amtrak train at the Wabash Avenue rail crossing in West Lakeland.

Lakeland police said Tuesday that the driver of the maroon Pontiac Grand Am drove around the lowered crossing gates and into the path of the eastbound passenger train.

A witness said the car flew 20 feet into the air and came down several hundred feet east of the crossing.

"Who would be stupid enough to try to beat a train?" Bebee asked.

The dead were identified by police as Stickney, Brian Preston Guy, 22; Whitney Pressnell, 20, and Cecerra Lee Benafield, 20.

All were from the Lakeland area.

Police on Tuesday released a video of the crash taken from a Publix warehouse surveillance camera and said they wanted to dispel rumors circulating in the community that the young adults had been part of some sort of chase.

The grainy black-and-white video shows a car going around the lowered crossing gates and into the path of the speeding train. Amtrak officials have said the train was authorized to go up to 79 mph at the crossing.

Guy's mother, Centhia Veltrop, said her son had come by her home earlier to see whether his brother was there. Benafield was driving and Guy was in the front passenger seat, she said. The other women were in the back seat.

Guy's friend, Courtney Lipham, said the the four were on their way to her place.

Tuesday brought a steady flow of grieving relatives and friends to the Wabash Avenue tracks who came to say their goodbyes.
Throughout the day, they wandered up and down the tracks, many looking for something to take home. They found handwritten notes, pieces of Usher and Green Day CDs, items of clothing, a windshield wiper knob.

Reporters and TV camera crews came to interview the relatives and friends. And CSX railroad company officials spent the day shooing people off the tracks.

Many listened and heeded the warnings, others sat on the tracks. Some wept before moving on.

By twilight, more than 100 people had gathered for a candlelight vigil.

Across from where a friend had found Pressnell's gold earring, her family and friends created a makeshift garden.

Her brother, Caleb Pressnell, wept almost uncontrollably as their aunt, Shellie Molnar, sprinkled rose petals near a teddy bear.

Anthony Newbold, the father of Pressnell's 2-year-old son, used a rock, and then a rail spike to dig holes in the dirt. Mourners handed him bunches of flowers and he planted them in the ground, patting the dry earth around them.

"I think this is beautiful," said Kellie Pressnell, Pressnell's mother. "The accident was just awful to take four innocent lives."

"This is a beautiful scene," she said. "But it's not going to bring them back."

It was unclear Tuesday how long the four young adults had known each other. Benafield was the newest to the area, and apparently moved here from North Carolina.

She and Pressnell worked together at Showgirls, a bikini bar just over the Hillsborough County line on U.S. 92 in Plant City, directly across the road from the railroad tracks.

Pressnell danced as Ginger. Benafield was known as Lia. They performed for tips on the stage under the multicolored lights.

"They worked maybe two or three days a week for maybe a month," said a Showgirls' manager who declined to give her name.

She said she had not seen the two women, who gave Lakeland addresses, in about a month. "Girls that age come and go," she said.

Stickney and Pressnell were mothers. Stickney's daughter, Karley, is 2. Pressnell was the mother of 2-year-old Gavin.

Thomas Dominicak described himself as a distant relative of Benafield's, though he said he didn't know her well. He lamented that the deaths could have been prevented.

"Whatever is on the other side of those railroad tracks, it will still be there," he said. "It's not going anywhere."

Jackie Hardy described her nephew Brian Guy as a happy person who loved his family and enjoyed rodeo. "He came out of there a champion," she said. "I just hope that he didn't have any pain."

Joyce Daigle, a friend of the family, went with Hardy to lay flowers at the tracks. They plan to place fresh flowers every week. "He deserves something out there to be remembered," Daigle said.

"He will be missed," Hardy said. "He will be loved."

Cindy Royal, 17, loved him and was going to marry him.

"We had so many plans," she said. "I don't understand why he had to go because I loved him so very much. He was going to get a job. I was going to get a job and we we're going to get a place."

Relatives of Pressnell said she was a typical teenager who liked to hang out with friends but also took care of her son. "She was a good mom," said her aunt, Robin Arndt.

Stickney, the youngest of the four, would have turned 19 next month. Her mother, Sharon Robson of Lakeland, burst into tears talking about the gift of shirts and shorts she had already wrapped for her birthday.

"I don't want people talking ugly about her," Robson said. "She just went down the wrong road and I couldn't reach her."

Stickney had dropped out of school, lasting a day at Auburndale High School. Robson was bored with classes and wouldn't go back.

"She thought she was older than she was," Robson said.

Robson said her daughter made friends easily and didn't see flaws in other people.

Lately, she told her mother she had been cleaning houses.

Robson said her daughter had been moving from place to place and she would leave her daughter Karley with her. The last time Robson saw her daughter was last week when she dropped Karley off after a brief visit.

She recalled how Stickney had stopped by her home on another day and left a note and a kitten in a basket.

Robson read the letter written in bold letters on loose-leaf notebook paper. In it, Stickney explained why she didn't come inside.

"I didn't want Karley to cry after me," the note said.

"Karley would always cry when she left," Robson said.
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[emotionsickness]

That's so tragic. So they were strippers who apparently let their moms raise their kids; yeah I guess that is "typical teenage" behavior. When will people realize you can't outrun a train? I like what one girl's relative said: "Whatever is on the other side of the tracks will still be there."  :2upset: No duh.

RIP dumb teens, please let this be a lesson

Their poor kids!

[HyperU2]

[quote author=WooFrigginHoo link=topic=8997.msg487089#msg487089 date=1186467167]


Reporters and TV camera crews came to interview the relatives and friends. And CSX railroad company officials spent the day shooing people off the tracks.

Many listened and heeded the warnings, others sat on the tracks. Some wept before moving on.


[/quote]

Brilliant!