A 24-year-old woman was killed Wednesday morning when her vehicle was struck by a westbound Amtrack passenger train in Las Animas shortly before 8 a.m..
The vehicle was ripped in two by the force of the impact. The front part of the vehicle was near the road north of the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe tracks on Ash Avenue. More mangled wreckage came to rest aboout 40 yards to the west.
Rescuers later in the morning were pumping a deep pond of water alongside the tracks so they could further check the main part of the mangled wreckage.
While Las Animas police were withholding the identify of the victim, several young people near the accident scene and others around town identified the victim as Jennifer Fries, 24. Many of the young people who knew her were in mourning after word quickly spread about the accident.
Most railroad traffic through Las Animas is eastbound but a westbound Amtrack passes through in the morning, said Jeff Baylor, whose farm is near the railroad tracks west of Las Animas. A freight train was parked along parallel tracks to the east of the railroad crossing. The passenger train, which came to a stop after the accident, was on the main track.
