Oregon woman hit by train, hospitalized was distracted by her phone

BEAVERTON, Ore. — An Oregon woman who was distracted by her cellphone is hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after she was struck by a freight train in a Portland suburb.

Detectives have not been able to speak with Cindy Rodriguez since the accident, Beaverton police spokesman Mike Rowe said.

Rodriguez, 26, was not wearing headphones, he said, and she is not deaf.

Multiple visual and auditory warnings were all functioning, and the train’s conductor climbed onto a walkway on the front of the engine to try to get her attention, he said.

“The conductor was on the front of the train screaming and yelling at her,” he said, adding that the engineer inside the train blasted the horn.

“The walk signal actually talks so it was saying, ‘Wait, wait, wait.’ She’s in the crosswalk, and one of the rail arms is actually next to her as she’s walking through.”

Officers responding to the scene tied two tourniquets around Rodriguez’s most severe injuries so that paramedics could get her into an ambulance as quickly as possible.

“This is an extremely tragic incident and is a sobering reminder to all of us to be aware of our surroundings at all times,” Rowe said.