Young boy's TRAX crossing near-miss foreshadowed girl's death by 3 weeks

WEST JORDAN — About three weeks before 15-year-old Shariah Casper was killed by a TRAX train on June 8, an elementary school boy almost met the same fate at a nearby crossing, according to a high school teacher who witnessed the incident.

West Jordan High School coach and driver's education instructor Dan Cowan was giving his students a road test when the TRAX crossing arms at 2200 West (near Sugar Factory Road) went down, he said.

While waiting for the train to pass, they noticed that a grade school boy, about 7 or 8 years old, had stepped too close to the tracks. Fortunately, the boy noticed the oncoming TRAX train and jumped back out of its way just in time.

"I about had a heart attack," Cowan said.

One driver's ed student let out a scream.

"The train must have missed him by just a couple of feet," Cowan said.

Immediately upon returning to West Jordan High, Cowan said he told school officials what had happened, and said to them, "I can absolutely guarantee after watching what I watched that someone would get killed" at a TRAX crossing.

"It just made me sick when that girl was killed," he said of the fatal accident at the 3200 West crossing.

Shariah Casper, 15, and her cousin were looking to cross near the intersection of 3200 West and 8600 South on June 8. They saw an eastbound train go by but never saw the westbound train. Shariah was struck by the westbound train and killed.

The near miss happened May 16, which also happened to be the first day the Utah Transit Authority began running test trains on the new Mid-Jordan and West Valley lines.

Within hours Cowan also told Jordan School District officials, he said. Westvale Elementary School Principal Becky Gerber said she was informed the next day, May 17.

Gerber also said UTA never told her that the test trains would begin running May 16, either by email or phone. "I was not notified," she told the Deseret News Friday.

And Gerber said she told UTA about the boy's near miss the same day she found out, when she spoke to the school's UTA community involvement specialist.

That UTA employee referred questions to the transit authority's senior media specialist, Gerry Carpenter, who issued the following statement: "While third-hand comment of a possible near-miss on the line was received in mid-May, no first-hand report, operator or witness statement was ever provided to UTA."