NC driver on mobile phone turned ahead of train

RALEIGH, N.C. — Authorities say a North Carolina woman was talking on her cell phone when she drove through a railroad crossing into the path of an Amtrak train last week.

Multiple media reported Thursday that the Highway Patrol determined warning lights and bells and the crossing gate functioned properly before the Dec. 22 crash that killed a mother
and her 5-year-old son.

The Highway Patrol said witnesses reported seeing 26-year-old Erin Lindsay-Calkins using her phone as she drove toward the railroad crossing near Efland in Orange County.

Bystanders pulled her 4-month-old daughter out of a car seat in the vehicle’s twisted metal.

None of the 215 passengers on the Amtrak passenger train bound from Charlotte to New York was hurt.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)