Saying he doesn’t believe foul play was involved, Oakland’s deputy police chief expects to wrap up the investigation into a man hit by a freight train by Tuesday.
The identity of the 37-year-old man, who was hit Saturday by a Pan Am freight train just before 11 p.m., has not been released, nor has his condition. Police still are trying to find his family, though they said he is from Oakland.
“We don’t think there was foul play involved,” said Rick Stubbert, deputy chief of the Oakland Police Dept. “We expect to wrap this up tomorrow.”
[iframe url=”https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m14!1m12!1m3!1d1001.5759670759809!2d-69.71941100138795!3d44.54767567466221!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!5e1!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1565538837535!5m2!1sen!2sus” height=”600″ width=”400″ frameborder=”0″ style=”border:0″ allowfullscreen]
Stubbert said that while he does not know the man’s condition, he is alive. There were no witnesses to the accident, which happened in an unlit area behind downtown stores late Saturday night.
The police department has been cooperating on the investigation with the Pan Am railroad police.
Stubbert said Sunday that he was not sure what happened, but it looked like the man was walking on the tracks approaching the train crossing and did not get to the intersection in time.
The man was LifeFlighted to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston and is in intensive care, a hospital spokesperson confirmed. However, the hospital is not releasing the man’s condition.
Cynthia Scarano, executive vice president for Pan Am, said the accident happened four or five car lengths east of the Oak Street crossing in Oakland behind the Subway restaurant. Each car is about 6-feet long.
She said the man was trespassing and that it is illegal to be on the tracks, which are private property.
Scarano said the train crossing contains signals, and each train must make a sound at a whistle post mark near the crossing with two long, one short and one long whistle.