An 18-year-old college student was killed Monday morning when a commuter train bound for Chicago struck him at the Schaumburg Metra station, police said.
Hemal D. Patel of the 600 block of Waterford Drive, Hanover Park, was crossing the Metra tracks in the direction of the station when he was hit by the eastbound train about 6:30 a.m., authorities said.
Patel, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was on his way into the city with fellow students, said Roselle Deputy Police Chief Patrick Dempsey.
“It was just a tragic accident,” Dempsey said. “He takes a train to go down to UIC. Usually they take the train at 6:15 a.m., and he was running late. He saw the train coming and he thought it was his. He just tried to beat it across the tracks.”
But the train was not scheduled to stop in Schaumburg. It was on its way to Roselle and had only crew members on board, said Tom Miller, a Metra spokesman. The train, due to arrive in Chicago at 7:18 a.m., was canceled along with three more inbound trains on the Milwaukee District West Line; six other trains were delayed.
On a normal weekday, the delays and cancellations would have affected about 7,700 people, but officials estimated that fewer commuters were traveling Monday because of the Columbus Day holiday.
Patel’s death is the 16th fatality this year involving a Metra train, Miller said. Nearly 4,000 Metra trains operate each week.
“No matter how often we stress the safety issue, we cannot impose caution, and there’s no foolproof way to prevent these tragic incidents from happening,” Miller said.
