Two men killed by a train in North Carolina were mourning their brother who died in the same spot.
Pablo Tiquiram Us, 29, and Chilambalam Tiquiram Us, 20, went to the railway crossing in Charlotte at around 5.10am on Tuesday to remember their brother Baltazar Tiquiram Us, 27, who had been killed there when his pickup truck was hit by a light-rail train a week earlier.
They were walking north down the southbound tracks in the early morning when they were hit and killed by a Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) Lynx train in the same spot as their sibling.
Police said the train operator immediately stopped the train and that a medic pronounced the brothers dead at the scene.
“Two brothers were mourning the loss of another brother who had been struck by another train,” Sgt Adam Jones of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
Sgt Jones said the brothers could be seen on video footage standing on the track before the crash and that the gate arms and other track safety devices at the crossing appeared to be working properly, Spectrum Local News reported.
“As the train was approaching, they appeared to look at it before they were struck,” he added.
Police said they think drinking was involved: “Alcohol impairment is suspected as a contributing factor for the pedestrians.”
Their brother, Baltazar Tiquiram Us, was driving his pickup truck across the tracks at East Hebron Street in southern Charlotte on 26 July just before 10pm when his car was struck by a train, killing him and gravely injuring a passenger in the vehicle. The unidentified passenger in the Toyota Tundra was taken to hospital for treatment.
Police said in a release that four people were on the train when it hit the truck, but they weren’t injured.
“The driver of the Toyota drove around the crossing arms and into the path of the Light Rail train,” police said late last month.
“The train operator sounded the horn while it was approaching the crossing, and the crossing arms’ warning lights were operational and flashing,” the CMPD added.
The Charlotte Observer reported that a 26-year-old woman was killed at the same crossing in 2017 after her vehicle collided with a train. CMPD said she didn’t stop despite the crossing arms and signals being operational.
