A father and son were injured Tuesday after their truck got stuck in the path of an oncoming train on the tracks in Hartman.
The driver, Brian Harris, 33, and his father Vernon Harris, Jr., 60, were traveling northbound on Main Street and pulling a small flat-bottom boat around 11 a.m. when the accident occurred, according to a news release from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
Harris pulled onto the tracks then noticed the eastbound train, the sheriff says. He attempted to back up, but the train collided with the truck, knocking the boat off of the trailer and flipping the truck on its side.
Both men were taken to Johnson regional Medical Center in Clarksville with non-life threatening injuries, according to the sheriff’s office.
Harris and a witness told deputies that the warning bells were working, but the lights were not. Union Pacific workers, who happened to be by the tracks at the time of the accident, and another witness at a polling place, said they saw both the warning lights and the bells as the train approached, according to the sheriff’s office.
Both the sheriff’s office and Union Pacific Railroad officials are investigating the accident.
