ORLANDO, Fla. – The Orlando Police Department has released video of the SunRail train-SUV collision from Wednesday.
Please obey all traffic laws, especially when approaching railroad crossings. Trying to cross when a train approaches is extremely dangerous. Exercise patience and drive safe. pic.twitter.com/OzvO0WJFBV
— Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) April 11, 2019
The train hit the SUV around 4:20 p.m. Wednesday in the area of Interstate 4 and Colonial Drive, according to police.
Witnesses: Nurse rushes to help driver after SunRail train hits SUV in downtown Orlando
The video appears to show the SUV go under the warning guards as the gates lower.
The driver sits in front of the tracks for about 14 seconds before attempting to cross them, the video shows.
During the attempt to cross, the train crashes into the SUV.
The driver of the SUV was taken to a local hospital in serious condition.
The Florida Department of Transportation said a southbound train was stopped for about 90 minutes.
Eighty-two passengers were on the train.
Witnesses said a nurse on the train rushed to the SUV to help out the driver.
"What was that like, seeing all of the people rush in to save the woman? Well, you know, it makes you feel good when you see all those people trying to help," one witness said.
FDOT officials said the crash caused delays to the system.
About 90 minutes after the crash all of the SunRail trains were back on the move.
"We heard the loud boom, boom. Looked out the window immediately," Cobb Jones said, describing when he looked down at the incident from his office.
The name of the SUV driver has not been released at this time.
Wednesday's crash marked the third crash at the intersection since December. In one instance, there were two crashes in one day and FDOT came out to look at what could be improved.
FDOT spokesperson Steve Olson met News 6 out at the intersection of the crash Thursday. He said right now this is ground zero for the I-4 Ultimate project and where it comes together with the other legacy Sunrail project.
"We got trains coming through here, we got I-4 constructions going on, lots of traffic," said Steve Olson, FDOT spokesperson. "Drivers need to exercise every bit of their patience and every bit of their good judgement and every bit of their good driving skills back here."
He said after the December crashes, FDOT added more signage and tweaked the traffic light time to get traffic moving easier through the busy intersection, but adds everything was function and to standard at the time of Wednesday's crash.
He just hopes people will pay more attention to make sure they don't get stuck on the tracks.
"Stay behind the white line," Olson said. "You got to give yourself some space because the train could be coming at any time."
This is a developing story. We will update this story as more information becomes available.