A Mills County man who was hit by a train Thursday night has died. He’s identified as 20-year-old Christopher Aguirre of Malvern. Mills County Chief Deputy Sheriff Bruce Paulsen says they’re still investigating the circumstances surrounding the Aguirre’s death.
Paulsen says the accident happened around 9 P.M. as a Burlington-Northern train was passing through the Malvern area. He says a railroad employee on the train saw Aguirre on the tracks, but the train couldn’t stop in time.
Paulsen says Aguirre was still alive when emergency crews and deputies arrived on the scene, but he died just before 5 o’clock this morning at an Omaha hospital. The incident happened about a quarter-mile northwest of Malvern, where a concrete overpass crosses the Wabash Trace bike trail. Because it’s a heavily wooded area and it was raining, Paulsen says it took emergency crews a while to reach the victim.
Citizens volunteered to drive their four-wheel-drive vehicles into the area to help in the rescue effort. An autopsy has been ordered to determine the exact cause of death.
Contributed by Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic