Person Hit & Trapped Under Train in Spring Valley

Over the weekend the Hudson Valley was completely and utterly ravaged by weekend storms that caused massive flooding and incredible damage to local towns. In addition to flooding and damages, the weekend storms caused difficulties for emergency personnel attending to a variety of different events because of the storms.

Get our free mobile app

One of these events occurred in Rockland County early on Monday morning. Shortly after 3 am on Monday, emergency personnel as well as law enforcement were alerted to an event unfolding at the Spring Valley Train Station. The reports coming in were of an individual who had apparently been hit and was stuck underneath a train.

Emergency Response and Rescue

Immediately after receiving word of the incident emergency personnel and law and enforcement responded to the scene. Upon arrival, personnel indeed found the victim "heavily pinned" underneath the New Jersey Transit train. In an updated report from Rockland Daily, the conductor of the train stated that he saw the individual on the tracks but by that time it was to late. The conductor also stated that it appeared as if the individual was "sleeping".

Emergency personnel immediately went into rescue mode in order to free the individual from underneath the train. The operation to free the individual took a reported 45 minutes but emergency personnel were successful in their efforts. After being freed, the individual required serious medical treatment. Paramedics gave the individual oxygen and also applied a tourniquet to the individual's damaged leg.

For those that may not have known, a tourniquet is a device that can be applied to stop the flow of blood from a vein or an artery. The device itself can be as simple as a rope or a cord but the idea is that through tying the device tight one can compress a vein or artery to forcibly stop flood flow. Belts can potentially make great tourniquets if one ever required one.

Weekend Storms Complicate Medical Response

Here is where the issue of the weekend weather came into play. Originally first responders made a call for a Medivac helicopter to report to the scene in order to transport the individual. The plan was for the Medivac to land in a nearby field at Spring Valley High School, however, due to the weekend storms the Medivac was unable to even fly.

With Medivac unavailable a new plan of action was needed. Medical personnel on the scene would then act and transported the victim to Westchester Medical Center via ambulance for further medical treatment. Reports stated that the individual was in "critical condition".

At this moment, no other information regarding the injured individual has been made available. We will continue to do our best to update this story if more information becomes available. For those interested, you may follow the link to see more photos and videos from the scene (click here).