Train Kills Mother After She Rescues Girl From Van

Maria Valadez spent the last moments of her life stopped in traffic on the Metrolink train tracks Tuesday in Pacoima, waiting at the Osborne Street crossing as the signal lights began flashing and the crossing gates lowered on either side of her.

She dashed out of the car to let her 7-year-old daughter Jessica out of the passenger side, according to witnesses. But as Jessica fled, her mother got back into the 1980 Dodge minivan, apparently trying to save it, police and Valadez’s family said.

The van’s engine appeared to stall as she tried to back up and the four-car, 300-ton train barreled into it, hitting the right front fender and sending the vehicle spinning, Los Angeles Police Lt. Charles Kunz said. The van whirled around and its rear-end smacked against the train, hurling the van 75 feet into a culvert.

Jessica ran into the arms of an off-duty LAPD officer who showed up as the drama unfolded. Her mother was pronounced dead at the scene.

“She did the wrong thing in going back into the car and trying to get it off the tracks,” said Peter Hidalgo, a Metrolink spokesman. “When you have 300 tons approaching at 76 m.p.h., it’s not likely you will be a winner.”

Max Valadez Jr. said the fact that his mother saved his younger sister eases the pain of her death.

“The way she brought us up is to think of people other than ourselves in times of need,” said Valadez, 23. “That’s one thing she did--she risked her life for another.”

None of the 120 train passengers or the crew were injured, although the train was disabled by one of the van’s tires, which lodged against an air hose under the train, Kunz said. Passengers were bused Downtown.

Maria Valadez had left her nearby house minutes earlier to drive Jessica to Montague Elementary School, her son said. She was traveling west on Osborne about 7:15 a.m. when she stopped in traffic on the tracks at San Fernando Road, Kunz said.

“If the (traffic) signal turns red, and there are two or three cars in front of you as you are approaching the intersection, you want to be sure” you are not stuck on the tracks, Kunz said.

But Valadez was stuck on the tracks as the train heading from Canyon Country to Downtown Los Angeles roared toward her. She would have been able to break through the guard gates, Kunz said, if she had been able to make the van back up.

The engineer slammed on the emergency brakes, Kunz said, but the train continued for a quarter of a mile past the crash.

Ironically, Hidalgo said, Metrolink, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Clippers, had planned to post billboards Thursday in the area of the crash, warning pedestrians and drivers to be careful of the tracks.

The crash is the first fatality on Metrolink tracks this year, Hidalgo said. Last year, there were eight fatal accidents resulting in 13 deaths, he said, not including suicides. About half of the 26 fatalities on the tracks since Metrolink service began in October, 1992, have been suicides, according to Metrolink.

The Valadez family’s house overlooks the train tracks. Max Valadez Jr. was driving home from a college class Tuesday morning when he saw his mother’s mangled van by the side of the road. He dashed up to police officers and asked them frantically about his mother. They directed him to the station down the block, where his father, Max, sat grieving.

Max Valadez Jr. said his mother, a part-time housecleaner who raised two sons and a daughter before giving birth to Jessica, was an energetic woman who loved her family intensely.

“She had a beautiful heart,” he said. “She was a wonderful person. Her personality was one of the . . . ,” he stopped, overcome by grief, looking out at the train tracks.