Emergency vehicle gets stopped by a train. What happens?

Factual Questions
1

The other day I was out and stopped at a railroad crossing for a train. While I was stopped, I heard sirens and saw a pair of fire trucks approaching from the opposite direction. They obviously stopped for the train as well and sat there, sirens blazing, for several minutes while the train passed. Fortunately everyone else at the stop stayed where they were and let the trucks go on before moving themselves.

This led me to wonder what exactly the policy when things like this happen. Obviously there are railroad crossings and obviously the train can’t get out of the way of an emergency vehicle. So, what does happen in these cases? Do they just wait for the train to clear? Turn around and try to find another, unblocked route? Call in and have another unit dispatched? Given the time-critical nature of some things I would hope they have some kind of backup plan in place; I would hate to think that my house could burn down because the trucks got blocked by the daily coal train to the local steam plant.

I know we have some EMT and firefighter types here on the board; what do you do when this happens?

2

When I lived in Lancaster, CA this was an issue for a long time. The tracks run along Sierra Highway and all of the crossings are at grade. Eventually they built an overpass.

3

In my town, they wait. We do have fire stations (who do first response) on both sides of the tracks, and the police cruise around so there’d be some on either side, but ambulances going to the hospital wait for the train.

They’re about to start building an underpass on one of the busiest streets for exactly this reason.

4

In my current home town, the entrance to the hospital actually crosses train tracks!! (oh, to be a fly on the wall during that decision-making process.)
I haven’t personally witnessed an ambulance held up by the train, but I imagine it must happen on a regular enough basis that the slapping of foreheads could be heard :smack:

S^G

5

In my city the emergency plan has the vehicles come down my street instead of the street where they’re located, just to avoid the possibility of getting stopped by a train. So instead of A to B (B being a long road with train tracks across it) they go A to C to D to B.

The people along my street are completely offended by having to “put up with” the sirens once or twice a week, so they’re pushing for an overpass over the train tracks. :rolleyes:

6

But… But… what’s the problem? If you’re going to get run down by a train, you’ll require urgent medical attention - so that’s the very best location to have it happen…

7

The Portland (OR) MAX line train is supposed to stop for emergency vehicles, but it doesn’t always work that way:

Oops!

I thought I remembered they had cited the Max driver, but apparantly not.

8

If they’re totally awesome emergency responders they jump the train through an empty box car.

9

Where I work, it depends on where the call is, and where the train is. Generally speaking, we just wait, but sometimes we can send another ambulance.

St. Urho
Paramedic

10

Where I grew up, they had no choice but to wait because the nearest department was 20 miles away. Now they have an additional fire station on the other side of the tracks.

Here’s the cool thing. My dad was a firefighter and when I was a kid, they decided to do a lot of work on the tracks that royally screwed up traffic. If you got caught, your best bet was to go about 15 miles out of your way to go around it. So, since we lived on the side of the tracks opposite the fire station, my dad got to drive a fire truck home every night for about a month in case there was an emergency on that side.

11

When I was a newb to the world of EMS, trains made some local stops and in so doing would block intersections. We were trained to break a train. It was a legal thing to do and is probably still done in some locals.
I used to be a car rider in a open pit iron ore mine that is now a State Park
Breaking trains was a every day thing. We would ride up to 6 cars through loading pockets and then ride them down the track and re-build the train. Today the train rarely stops while loading at the huge mines.

12

This was a big issue in Reno, Nevada because the tracks run right through downtown. They eventually dug a trench for the tracks so now there are no crossings, but if it floods like it has a few times before the trench, Reno will have a big moat through downtown.

13

Speaking of fire stations and tracks …
[hijack]
When I was in college, my roommate’s Dad was a fire captain. So we used to go visit his station not far from school. We could usually manage to show up in time to snag some free dinner, always popular with college kids.

Train tracks ran right behind the station. One night a train started blowing his horm something fierce & we heard all the brakes come on, etc. Something unusual had obviously happened. Sure enough, a couple minutes later the station alarm goes off: go see the train engineer 6 blocks away about an accident.

They jump on the trucks & wail away while roomie & I start walking down the tracks. Train looks normal, no wrecked autos, nothing. We’re starting to wonder …

Come to find out some nearby nutcase had been in the habit of laying on the tracks & jumping up at the last minute. This time he was a little too slow & got squished. Or, more accurately, decapitated.

The body was pretty easy to find: along the tracks about 1/2 way back on the train. So the firemen fanned out to look for the head. Everybody’s poking around the roadbed, under the train, etc., using flashlights in the deepening twilight. Roomie looks up from the gravel, takes a good look at the overall scene & asks “Hey, what do you suppose that group of dogs is doing over there?” Yep, some strays had found the head & were dining with gusto.

After that was packaged up & turned over to the coroner, it was time to return to dinner: now-cold spaghetti & meatballs with plenty of marinara.

An evening to remember.

Public safety announcement: Hey kids: don’t play chicken with trains.

[/hijack]

And to connect it all back to the OP , the body & head were on the opposite site of the tracks from the station, so all the searchers on that side had walked betweeen the railcars to get there. All the trucks were trapped on the wrong side.

14

In my youth, I worked as a technician at a veterinary hospital located about 500 yards from a railroad crossing. We once saw a German Shepherd that had just been hit by a train, perfectly amputating a front limb in the process. We ligated vessels while placing an IV, etc. The dog survived.