Woman walking to relative’s house struck, killed by train next to K-15

A 39-year-old woman was struck and killed by a train Friday morning as she walked on the tracks south of K-15 and 31st South, police said.

The engineer of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train called to report that the woman was struck in the 3400 block of South K-15 at about 6:50 a.m., Sgt. James Krok said. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene by an EMS crew.

The woman was walking north on the tracks with headphones on, Krok said. The train approached her from behind.

“She never looked back at the train, never heard the train,” Krok said he was told.

The engineer sounded the train’s horn and bell, but the woman never reacted, Lt. Joe Schroeder said at a later briefing. The woman was walking to a relative’s house on 31st Street South.

A man walking with her had fallen behind and went into some tall weeds for a while, Schroeder said. When he emerged from the weeds he thought the woman had already made the turn onto 31st Street South and didn’t realize she had been struck.

Police are still trying to track down the woman’s relatives and are not ready to release her name. She was staying in a house in Sedgwick County, Krok said.

The death could have been avoided, he said, because there is plenty of room for pedestrians to walk on the shoulders of K-15.

It’s illegal to walk on railroad tracks, Schroeder said.

“It’s illegal because it’s extremely dangerous,” he said.

Trains are much wider than the tracks themselves and are not able to stop quickly, he said.

Schroeder urged residents to be careful when using headphones in high-traffic areas.

“If you are wearing headphones, you need to be aware of the environment around you,” he said. “If you’re going to be in an area with high traffic, turn the music down low enough to hear around you.”

This story was originally published July 31, 2015 at 7:25 AM with the headline "Woman walking to relative’s house struck, killed by train next to K-15."