AURORA, Colo. — A light rail vehicle was going more than three times the speed limit when it derailed on a curve in Aurora in January, ejecting a passenger whose leg was severed by the moving train, the Denver Post reports.
The Post report on the Jan. 28 derailment is based on a police report released to the newspaper on Tuesday.
The accident occurred at a 90-degree curve at the intersection of South Sable Boulevard and East Exposition Avenue. The curve has a 10-mph limit, but investigators determined the train entered the curve at 38 mph and had only slowed to 32 mph when it left the rails. The operator told investigators he applied the brakes but the train didn’t slow, and suggested snow on the track might have compromised operation of the brakes. But Aurora police detective Joseph Petrucelli wrote in his report that the brakes were “working correctly.”
The passenger, whose name was redacted in the report, was thrown through a door that opened as the train derailed; the train then rolled over her right leg, amputating her foot. Another passenger created a makeshift tourniquet until police arrived and the woman was transported to a nearby hospital.
