Bonaire man wearing earphones is 2nd train fatality in same day

By Staff reports

For the AJC

Authorities say a Bonaire man was killed shortly after noon Wednesday when he was struck by a Norfolk Southern train and dragged several hundred yards -- the second fatality involving a train that day in Georgia.

About an hour earlier, an 80-year-old Cartersville man was killed when a car he was driving was struck by a CSX Transportation train in Bartow County, authorities said.

In the Bonaire incident, Houston County sheriff's officials say 41-year-old Freddie L. Meek Jr. was wearing earphones and apparently didn't hear the train approaching.

Sheriff's Lt. Jon Holland told The Telegraph of Macon the train had sounded its horn as it approached an intersection. He said the train sounded the horn again as workers on the train spotted the man ahead on the tracks.

Witnesses on the train and witnesses working outside nearby told authorities the man never looked around before being struck.

Separately, the Georgia State Patrol identified the victim in the Bartow County incident as Edward Ellis Brumfield Jr.

Brumfield sustained fatal injuries shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday when a CSX freight train hit his Ford Taurus on the driver’s side door at a grade crossing of Cass-White Road near U.S. 411 northeast of Cartersville

Brumfield had driven around the stop arm at the railroad crossing when he was hit, the GSP said. No one else was injured in the crash.

-- Dispatch Editor David Ibata and the Associated Press contributed to this article.