Ex: Feature writing off breaking news
This story about a tragic rail-crossing accident that killed seven people in eastern Oregon was given little attention by other media. It was in a remote corner of the state and involved an immigrant family who spoke only Spanish.To the credit of then-CoB Eva Parziale, I was sent out to the town. I was the only reporter to be in the family’s home during the service I describe below. This story, which I wrote on the flight back to Portland and filed the next morning, was featured on the AP’s national wire and was used in entirety by The Portland Oregonian and other papers across the U.S.
^AM-Train-Truck Collision, Bjt,1105<
^Community MournsLoss of Sevenof Its Members<
^AP Photo ONA101 of June 8<
^By MICHELLE ORTIZ RAY=
^Associated Press Writer=
NYSSA, Ore. (AP) _ A sad song on the AM radio station fills Carmen Rodriguez's bakery, the walls lined with shelves of yellow andpink frosted Mexican sweet bread.
"This life," a man sings in Spanish,"is worth nothing." The rich mariachi guitars swell as the man cries,"Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay."
Time has moved slowly in this dusty farming town on the edge of the Snake River since the day Sylvestre Perez and six other family members left for work. For his wife, Alejandra, and the others left behind, it hasn't moved at all.
Perez's two grown daughters, a son-in-law, sister, brother-in-law and nephew crowded into his brown Ford pickup with him just after daybreak on Thursday.
On their way to another long day working the beet and onion fields 3 miles from home, they pulled up to the same railroad crossing they had passed every morning for the last week or so.
Maybe Perez, 47, wasn't looking for anything unusual. In the crowded truck cab, maybe he just didn't see the Amtrak passenger train as it approached. With the windows rolled up, maybe he didn't hear the whistle as the train's driver tried to warn him.
What happened that clear morning will never be known. All seven died when the truck and the train met at the lonely railroad crossing in the fields outside of Nyssa.
Robert Ybarez was about to finish the graveyard shift at the packing house that morning when he heard about the crash. Born and reared in the small town near the Idaho border, he was pretty certain he knew whoever was involved.
The 27-year-old man rushed out to the fields. He had been right. He had worked with the Perez daughters, packing onions and potatoes. Three years ago, he had dated their sister.
Two days later, the young man was out at the railroad crossing again. How many times had he been there?
"Every day. I guess it's just my way of paying my last respects," he said.
His pickup parked near the crossing, Ybarez began walking the 3,850-foot-long stretch of track to thepoint where the Portland-bound Amtrak Pioneer finally came to a stop, the bed of the Ford still trapped under its grill.
Home-grown flowers lay wilted and drying on the rocks. Shards of the pickup's camper shell were scattered in the weeds. Ybarez picked up pieces of cables and connectors, trying to figure out where they had fit in the truck.
Farther down were a black rubber comb, a frayed yellow ponytail holder, a stretched out cassette tape, a stereo speaker, shattered pieces of reflector. Spray-painted circles marked where the bodies were found. A purple flower lay in the center of one circle. Ybarez paused, then continued walking.
A freight train began rumbling toward the crossing. With his fingersin his ears, Ybarez turned his back.
There are no guard rails or lights at the privately owned crossing. Putting up a gated signal would cost about half a million dollars, said Larry Yohe, accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.
Unless the owner is willing to pay for it, Yohe said, it's unlikely such a signal will be installed.
"As tragic as this was, this is a low-traffic-count crossing," he said. "There are hundreds of rural crossings like this across the country."
Lupe Marquez didn't understand such thinking. As she held 3-month-old Norma in her arms, she asked repeatedly why there was no gate. The baby is the daughter of two of the victims: Perez's daughter Lidia, 23, and Bernabe Ayala, 25.
Who will take care of the baby? "Her grandmother. Her aunts," answered Julia Robles, a friend and daycare worker. "She is ours now."
Also killed were Perez's 20-year-old daughter, Cecilia; his sister, Sofia, 49, and her husband, Jose Luis Joaquin, 42; and Perez's nephew, Victorino Trinidad, 28, who had just arrived from Mexico in March.
In her bakery, Carmen Rodriguez promised to help the family. She was relieved to hear that anonymous benefactors will help pay to transport the seven bodies to Guadalupe, Mexico, the tiny village in the state of Guerrero from which they moved seven years ago.
"They were very beautiful," she said. "Very humble, hard-working. Very Catholic."
Six women sat quietly in the center of the Perez's small home the day after the accident. A dozen children joined them on the small sofas or played quietly on the bright orange carpet. A little girl in a pink dress stood at the legs of one woman."Papi?" she asked."Your papi? He's working," the woman softly told the 2-year-old girl, the other daughter of the Ayalas.
Little boys rushed in and out of the bright blue room. Among them was Eduardo, the couple's 4-year-old son, too young to understand why so many people were visiting.
The room fell silent as the news came on the small television in the corner. Gregoria, Perez's 23-year-old daughter, watched videotape of herself accepting donations on the family's behalf.
At the sight of a body being taken away in a blue bag, Mrs. Perez walked out of the room sobbing. The TV was turned off.
Throughout the evening, Mrs. Perez wavered between graciousness and mournful cries, but there was no sign she had any more tears to shed.
"Sister, please, you must rest," Salvador Villegas, a lay minister from the Catholic Church, urged her. "Please close your eyes and sleep a little."
Mrs. Perez curled her small legs under her on the loveseat to sleep, but she couldn't close her eyes.
Carmen Rodriguez and other friends and family crowded into the blue room for the rosary. Maria Barbar began the prayer, but had to ask, "Where's thelist?" There were too many names to remember without one.
After the recitation of Hail Marys and Our Fathers in Spanish, Mrs. Perez took a small chair and sat, shoulders huddled over the Formica dining table as she began to sob.
"Senor, lift this suffering, this pain," Villegas said, spreading holy water on the woman's long black hair. "Take them in your hands. In this moment, we are completely in your hands."
Gregoria, who had put on a strong face for the family, finally let go as she embraced her mother.
"Ay, Papacito. My sisters," she cried.
"My sweet heaven!" Mrs. Perez said. "My husband! My daughters! My sister-in-law!"
"Ay, ay, ay, ay," she cried. A song without music.
Copyright 1995 By The Associated Press.All Rights Reserved.