Slow moving train traps ambulance on emergency call in Elk Grove - It is about the animals!

Slow-moving trains through highly populated and traffic-congested areas of Elk Grove are nothing new. But a slow-moving train trapped an ambulance from the Cosumnes Fire Department on an emergency run today in Elk Grove, Calif.

Today, an Elk Grove News reader shared a video they recorded as they traveled westbound on Bond Road, east of the Union Pacific rail crossing. Our reader motorist was stopped for about eight minutes starting at 11:30 a.m.

By coincidence, I was stopped by the same train on southbound Elk Grove-Florin Road and had enough time to pull over and record the slow-moving train. 

As revealed in the video below, the second vehicle behind the gate was an ambulance with the Cosumnes Fire Department that appeared to be on an emergency call. Given that they were headed west from the city's east side with their emergency signals deployed, they were probably attempting to reach a hospital.

Our reader said the ambulance quickly proceeded westbound on Bond Road when the gate opened. They were able to keep them in site about halfway between Elk Grove-Florin Road and West Stockton Boulevard. Presumably the ambulance proceeded to one of the area hospitals. 

The motorist was delayed for eight minutes, so the ambulance and patient may have been stopped for up to 10 minutes. When a patient in an ambulance is in a severe accident or suffering from a stroke, heart attack, or any other medical crisis, losing a few minutes can be the difference between surviving or perishing.

This ambulance likely drove past Waterman, and just before they reached the track, the gates closed, and they were trapped. Tough luck for the patient in the ambulance if they didn't get the emergency care they needed. 

Once the ambulance was trapped, it had few options. Crossing the median may not have been possible, and if they did so, where would they go? 

There is no access from the adjoining neighborhoods to other roads. They are all self-contained subdivisions.

If they went to Waterman and south to Elk Grove Boulevard, they would go away from hospitals such as Kaiser South, Methodist, UC Davis, or Sutter.

Sheldon would not be viable if they went north, as the slow-moving train was headed north. The ambulance crew would encounter the same problem on Calvine Road.

As the population grows and traffic increases in Elk Grove, unfortunate east-side residents on the wrong side of the track will increasingly face emergencies like this.

For neglected citizens on the city's east side (the mayor and four city council members live west of the tracks), the absence of overpasses or underpasses can be a matter of life and death. Yet, the city has zero interest in addressing the problem. 

But it doesn't have to be this way.    

It is sad because if Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and her city council cared more for people than animals, the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent on a discretionary zoo could have been used to serve and protect people. That money being shoveled to the Sacramento Zoological Society could go a long way to serving the people who live on the wrong side of the tracks.

For Mayor Singh-Allen, it is true - it is about the animals!