Train Hits 11-Year-Old Student Who Was Wearing Headphones While Crossing Tracks

An Amtrak train struck and killed 11-year-old Yazmin White after she left a restaurant near to her Florida home.

As reported by The Miami Herald, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said it appeared that White was wearing her headphones, which might be why she was still on the tracks when a two-engine Amtrak train struck her. The train had 12 passenger cars and killed her around 4:45 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

White was crossing the tracks when the train’s engineer spotted her, blew the horn repeatedly and applied the brakes.

“Yazmin White did not make any indication that she was aware the train was approaching her,” the sheriff’s office told The Miami Herald. “He told detectives she was looking down at her phone while walking. Evidence indicates White was wearing headphones at the time of the accident.”

The locomotive engineer will not face any charges in the death of the budding piano student at the Davenport School of the Arts.