Trains Kill 4, Including Daredevil Playing ‘Chicken’

Four people, including a woman on her way to work and a young man playing “chicken” with friends, were killed by trains in Southern California, two of them in Los Angeles County, police said Saturday.

In the first incident, at 7 p.m. Friday, Lorenzo Ruelas, 35, of Oxnard was killed when he was hit by an Amtrak passenger train traveling 70 m.p.h. outside Oxnard, Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Carl Schoenberger said. It has not been determined why Ruelas was walking on the tracks.

Two hours later Shawn James Schultz, 21, of Escondido was playing the daredevil game “chicken” with friends when he put his head on the tracks and was struck and killed by a southbound Amtrak train in Oceanside, Officer Lori Conway said.

The Amtrak train bound for San Diego from Los Angeles was traveling about 30 m.p.h. to 40 m.p.h. as it moved through the city about 40 miles north of San Diego, said Police Sgt. Richard Derouen.

The friends did nothing as the engine ran over Shultz because “the object of the game is to see how long you can stay down,” Derouen explained.

At 3 a.m. Saturday a heavily tattooed man lying on railroad tracks in Sun Valley was run over by a freight train and killed, authorities said.

The train’s crew told officers they saw the man as the locomotive approached but were unable to stop in time, Sgt. William Meier said. The victim, who was carrying no identification papers, had not been identified by late Saturday.

At 6 a.m. Saturday, a woman walking to work was struck and killed by a freight train as she stumbled and fell across tracks in El Monte, Sgt. Steve Schuster said.

Mary Louise Johnson, 30, of Temple City was pronounced dead at the scene, Schuster said.

Johnson was carrying a small bag containing her lunch when she stumbled while walking across a triple-track area. She was hit when she reached to pick up the contents of the bag, he said.

“It was still dark at the time,” Schuster said. He speculated that she misjudged the speed of the train.