RAGLAND — A railroad employee was killed Friday morning in Ragland when a train car derailed in the shipping yard at National Cement Company, crushing him against a building wall.John Michael Willis, 56, of Gadsden was killed when the last car of a Alabama & Tennessee River Railway train derailed, pinning him between the train car and a building wall. The cause of death is blunt force trauma, according to St. Clair County Coroner Dennis Russell.
The Ragland Police Department received the call to National Cement at approximately 10:30 a.m., said Police Chief Bubba Brown. Ragland Police and Ragland Fire and Rescue responded to the scene.
"When our rescue personnel arrived, he had rolled underneath the train," Brown said. "Rescue worked with him as much as they could."
Russell said he pronounced Willis dead on the scene at 11:07 a.m. He said it appeared Willis was standing on the rear of the last train car near the right side when the accident occurred.
"The engineer told me Willis was telling him (on the radio) that it was clear to move the train because no trucks were coming," Russell said. "The engineer said Willis started saying, 'stop, stop,' and the engineer hit the emergency stop. When he went to the rear of the train, he said he saw Willis pinned between the last car and the wall."
Russell said the last car slid to the right as it came off the rails and pinned Willis between the wall and the train. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Alabama & Tennessee River Railway are still investigating what caused the train to derail.
Sonja Lother, National Cement's public relations representative from Panaroma Public Relations, said National Cement Company contracts with the railroad company, and the train and rails are the property of the railroad company.
Spencer Weitman, president of National Cement, said Willis was not a National Cement employee. The company did not wish to make a statement regarding the incident.
When contacted, a representative of Alabama & Tennessee River Railway said company president David Teeter was at the scene of the accident and could not be reached. Calls to Teeter's cell phone were not immediately returned.
Alabama & Tennessee River Railway, headquartered in Gadsden, is a subsidiary of OmniTRAX. According to the company's Web site, OmniTRAX is the largest private railroad operator in North America, and in February of this year the company announced its lease of the former CSXT Alabama Mineral Subdivision rail line to be operated by the Alabama & Tennessee River Railway. The rail line serves more than 40 customers, including National Cement, Progress Rail Services, Tyson Foods, SMI Steel, Georgia Pacific, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Cargill, Praxair, Regional Recycling and Bowater Lumber.
