Train crushes teen putting coins on track

LIVONIA, La. – A Louisiana teenager playing a game with friends on train tracks was killed this weekend when some equipment threw him under one of the cars.

Law enforcement officials tell The Advocate that 17-year-old Brandt Torres and three friends had been placing coins on train tracks to watch them be crushed early Sunday.

Torres lay on the ground inches from the passing cars. A ladder hanging off one of the cars caught him, tossing him under the train. He was just south of a Union Pacific rail yard in Livonia, and he died about 1:30 a.m.

Authorities say Torres nearly died two years earlier in a hunting accident when he stood up in the path of a fellow duck hunter. A sheriff’s spokesman called his recovery “close to a miracle.”

This story was originally published December 9, 2014 at 9:34 AM with the headline "Train crushes teen putting coins on track."