Published: October 01, 2009 08:34 am      

Man dies in train-tractor crash

• Engineer says county worker never looked up before colliding with train

A Grady County worker was killed Wednesday morning when the tractor he was driving was struck by a northbound train.

The worker, identified by authorities as Dale Mosier, of Amber, was mowing on Cardinal Road (CR 1260) near the railroad track which parallels Hwy. 81 in Pocasset when he was struck. The train hit the tractor with enough force to separate it from the mower attachment it was pulling, throwing the tractor east of the railroad track and the mower attachment west of the track.

“We got the call about 10:30 a.m.,” said Grady County Sheriff Art Kell. “He’s a good man who touched a lot of lives.”

A detour had put Mosier in the vicinity of the train.

“We had him mowing on 2840 where there is a traffic detour and he came on over this way,” said District 1 Commissioner Windle Hardy. “We didn’t know he was going to come this way, but it’s not unusual, he goes where he needs to go.”

Hardy said he doesn’t know what happened, but the train engineer said although he was blowing the whistle, Mosier had his head down and never looked up.

“We are checking with his family to see if he had any medical problems we didn’t know about,” Hardy said.

A part-time worker who generally came to work later in the day than full-time employees, Mosier normally did not attend monthly safety meetings.

“There’s no reason not to see a train and it is unusual for him not to look up,” Hardy said. “I’ve known him all my life, he was a really fine man.”

Bruce Diehl of Pocasset Diesel Service, which is only a few yards from the accident site, said he heard the train whistle but did not hear the impact.

“”The horn is deafening in here,” said Diehl. “I didn’t even go out to see why it was blowing it’s horn because it’s not unusual for the train to stop here. I didn’t know something was wrong until I saw the ambulance and stepped outside.”