Miss Deaf Texas struck by train, killed

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The reigning Miss Deaf Texas died after being struck by a train, officials said.

Tara Rose McAvoy, 18, was walking Monday near railroad tracks when she was struck by a Union Pacific train, authorities said.

A witness told Austin television station KTBC the train sounded its horn right up until the accident occurred.

McAvoy, who had been deaf since birth, won the state title in June and represented the state "with dignity and pride," state pageant director Laura Loeb-Hill told The Associated Press via e-mail Monday night.

McAvoy was to represent Texas at the Miss Deaf America pageant this summer, Loeb-Hill said.

McAvoy graduated last year from the Texas School for the Deaf, attended Austin Community College and then started at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., in January, but had returned to Texas, Loeb-Hill said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I don't know how to take this news. I mean it's tragic, but also ironic.

[magenta]cozmonite61[/magenta] wrote: I don't know how to take this news. I mean it's tragic, but also ironic.

and if you find humor in death and irony: fucking hillarious

I wonder if it's on fark.com yet

If ONLY JEFF was DEAF

But why did she walk on the railways?

Your tragic information can hurt anyone , when i was teenager i remember i followed on TV programm american train moving accross american landscapes,and the presentator was so good that i recorded all emmission in the tape to listen it once,till now i found train a fairy subject and full of poesy and you can keep any surrealistic image about train and when this kind of desaster came,there is no place to poesy and eveything turn over

Oh if that isn't just hilarious.

I mean, really. The calibre of stupidity that requires a DEAF person to walk alongside some tracks and APPARENTLY never raise their head to take stock of the scene around them is just begging for a bit of a Darwin Award.

but wouldn't she feel the vibrations of the train and the whistles?

sad news indeed. yes it does raise a few questions. what was she doing on the tracks? why did she no turn around every so often, as trains are large and can be seen for some distance? why did she not feel the vibrations?

Generic wrote: It appears that Texas trains are remarkably silent...ninja trains, if you will...

They are like Chuck Norris, in Walker Texas Ranger

pity cassy jones isnt still driving the trains,she's have heard his tooting whistle for sure

Sometimes train whistles break in my sleep and wake me... And the railroad is 7 miles away from my house.

guys she was deaf.

are those bits of cotton wool stuck on your head ,Virtual?

AgentWood wrote: but wouldn't she feel the vibrations of the train and the whistles?

I would think so. I live right off a track myself, and when we were kids we'd walk down in the gully beside the tracks, and you could certainly feel it all. Unless the tracks she was walking down have had to do some sort of noise reduction due to being close to residential areas, I can;t imagine how she could miss the vibrations.

Unless she was riproaring drunk.

Generic wrote: It appears that Texas trains are remarkably silent...ninja trains, if you will...

LOL...I've seen the loco's they use over there...the word Behemoth comes to mind ;)

Surely a deaf person doing this is no less Darwin award worthy than a hearing person doing self same with a walkman on and turned up ( more accurately a personal stero as the "walkman" branded devices from sons have a system called AVLE, who's main finction is to render your headphones so quiet as to make getting squished by a train hard...it also totally defeats the point of having a device to close out reality).

Our trains here are Railcars, trams with ideas, and while they CAN sneak up on you a treat while coasting....it tends not to happen if you are on the line, because as has been pointed out....there's a lot of very transmissable vibration from a loco.

I note the report says "near tracks"....maybe she was walking beside the track and miscalculated the width of trains.....tho that would still require a fair degree of daftnes and a desire to want to get that up close on something that scary.

You'd think she'd pay more attention and look carefully before crossing. I wouldn't cross a railtrack either.

NI train.....

American loco

bansheeman wrote: pity cassy jones isnt still driving the trains,she's have heard his tooting whistle for sure

i don't know about that. trouble ahead, trouble behind, don't you know that notion just crossed my mind?

No Bob Dylan records for me tonight then, out of respect.

goop wrote: No Bob Dylan records for me tonight then, out of respect.

or grateful dead, surely?

As you see this time nobody could make any joke around this tragedy,i'm virtualy in ,it's not a cotton it's just my headphone, did not see the difference?

Steve Campbell wrote: NI train.....

American loco

We have both of those types of trains here, Ste.

The top is more of a commuter train (short distances like what I take to work each day)

The second is more of a Long Distance train.. and in particular that one looks like a cargo

virtual01 wrote: As you see this time nobody could make any joke around this tragedy,i'm virtualy in ,it's not a cotton it's just my headphone, did not see the difference?

I wish I understood you, virtual. You write like you're speaking in poems.

ChrissMari wrote:

We have both of those types of trains here, Ste.

The top is more of a commuter train (short distances like what I take to work each day)

The second is more of a Long Distance train.. and in particular that one looks like a cargo

I know...but as I understand it...suburban rail systems are generally fenced in and stuff.....it's only the long freight routes tha are unfenced and hence easy to get twatted on. Still...not tremendoulsy clever really.....but I'm quite intrigued by "near the tracks"

Nobody expects this tragic event to happen. It's a mystery to see if there was anything that could be prevented.

she was texan after all. doesnt that explain it?