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Train Warnings Fall Short Of State Standards, Widow: "This Is A Definite Wrong"


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MIDLAND (CBS 11 NEWS) - "I thought it was coming slow and he pushed me and said, 'Jump, Angie! Jump,' and that's the last thing he said to me…"

Angie Boivin cried as she recalled, in an exclusive interview with CBS 11's I-Team, the train accident a year ago in Midland that killed her husband, Larry Boivin, and three other veterans.

An I-Team investigation into that accident, which occurred during a parade honoring veterans, has uncovered major safety concerns for railroad crossings throughout the state.

We have also learned, through months of investigation, that the warning signals in Midland did not operate properly on November 15, 2012 when the flatbed truck carrying the veterans and their wives began to cross the tracks, into the path of an oncoming train.

Records and videotaped depositions obtained exclusively by the I-Team also suggest both the state and the railway, Union Pacific, should have known ahead of time there were problems with the warning system.

Both Union Pacific and the Texas Department of Transportation declined comment on the I-Team's findings, citing pending litigation. Union Pacific also declined to provide information on how often they inspect the railway's warning systems at intersections across the state.

"I knew he pushed me to safety and I'm here today because of his courage," Angie Boivin said in an interview at her North Carolina home, adorned with memories of her husband's days as a soldier in the Army's elite Delta Force unit.

In tragic irony, the fatal Midland accident occurred while Boivin and the other veterans were being honored for, among other things, the life-threatening injuries they suffered for their country.

Some of the veterans in the parade had been paralyzed by their war wounds, limiting their ability to try and jump for safety in the seconds before the train crashed into them.

Angie Boivin, who is a nurse, was attending to others injured in the train wreck when she discovered her husband, draped by a blanket woven into the design of an American flag.

"When I pulled the blanket back …I laid my head on his chest and he took his last breath," she said in her interview with Senior Investigative Reporter Ginger Allen.

The National Transportation Safety Board recently concluded that the accident was caused by the "lax and informal manner" in which the city of Midland and the parade's organizer, Show of Support, planned and executed the event.

The NTSB cited the fact that the organizer did not request a parade permit ahead of time, yet the city of Midland allowed it to go on anyway. The agency never mentioned any failures by the railway operator, Union Pacific.

However, Dallas attorney Steve Malouf, who has been retained by the Boivin family, says the veterans in the parade were only given 20.4 seconds of warning – far below the required 30 seconds.

While federal law requires at least 20 seconds of warning before a train reaches a crossing, the I-Team obtained records that show Union Pacific, the Texas Department of Transportation and the city of Midland agreed in 1991 that there should at least be 30 seconds of warning at the crossing to keep the public safe.

Malouf blamed Union Pacific for not properly maintaining the warning system, and TxDOT for not providing adequate oversight.

"We put a man on the moon 50 years ago …you can't tell me how the railroad and the state of Texas can't figure out how to give motorists adequate warning at an intersection," the lawyer said.

Malouf says Union Pacific's own records show that there was an "activation failure," meaning the warning system dipped to under 20 seconds, at the Midland crossing two weeks before the fatal accident that also injured 11 other veterans and their wives. Federal guidelines, according to the lawyer, require immediate action when such a failure occurs.

However, neither that warning failure, nor another "activation failure" that occurred two days after the accident, were addressed, Malouf said.

The I-Team asked the state for the minimum warning times for train crossings throughout the state, arguing it was information that was in the interest of public safety. The state responded by saying it would only turn over the information if CBS 11 News would first pay it nearly $200,000 in fees.

So instead, in an effort to see if there are problems at other train crossings, the I-Team identified several in Dallas that require at least 30 seconds of warning. We quickly found one in violation – providing us only 24.4 seconds before a train raced by.

At her home in North Carolina, Angie Boivin said she hopes more will be done to make train crossing safer …so her husband did not die in vain.

"This is kind of what their job is in the military, or in the Army, to fight for those less fortunate and for those wrongs done to people," she said, adding: "This is a definite wrong that needs to be addressed."

If you want to reach CBS 11′s Senior Investigative Producer Jack Douglas Jr., you can email him at jdouglas@cbs.com. If you want to reach CBS 11′s Investigative reporter Ginger Allen, you can email her at gingera@ktvt.com.

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