Near miss: Layton family flees trapped SUV just before train hits it

Laura Mullins and her husband, Sam, reached into the back of the sport utility vehicle to grab their young children from their car seats.

The train was getting closer.

As Laura tugged to get one of her sons out, she realized he had his foot caught in his seat belt.

Then she had him, and they were running as fast as they could off the railroad tracks.

Seconds later, the Suburban the Layton family had just escaped from was broadsided by a Union Pacific train.

"We ran for our lives," Laura Mullins said.

Witnesses said the train's whistle was blaring as the conductor tried to stop. But Mullins said later she didn't recall hearing it — just like she didn't remember hearing the crunching sound of the train hitting the SUV.

"I was just concerned I didn't run far enough," she said.

The Mullins family stood relatively calm near their wrecked vehicle later Wednesday afternoon, watching as it was loaded onto a flatbed tow truck as railroad crews looked over the cross arm that was taken out in the crash.

A little before 4 p.m., the Mullins family had just finished shopping at Diamond Mattress, located right next to the railroad tracks at 500 North and 300 West. The Mullinses were in the process of moving and had picked up a mattress for their new home.

They waited at the crossing arm, which was down, before proceeding, Laura said. They started crossing once the arm was up, but the arm came down again before the SUV was off the tracks. The arm came down between the Suburban and the trailer it was pulling.

"At first we thought we'd break it. We'd just throw it in reverse and break it," she said.

They quickly abandoned that thought, however, and decided to run. Each parent grabbed one of their boys, 5-year-old Kayden and 3-year-old Tristan.

"Whew. We were lucky. We definitely made the right choice (to get out and run)," Laura Mullins said as she looked at the wrecked vehicle while trying to smile.

Railroad officials also told the Mullinses they made the right decision.

"They said you couldn't have broken (the crossing arm)," she said.

The boys were calm after the accident, not realizing the full impact of what had just happened.