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Neighbors who live near the train tracks knew something was wrong.
The train, which normally only blows the horn at crossings at about 4 p.m., continued to blow Tuesday. Then a man’s voice, calling desperately for his dog, brought 26-year-old Ashley Copeland to her front door.
She helplessly watched as the scene unfolded as the train struck and killed a 50-year-old Soddy-Daisy man as he was trying to get his pet off the tracks.
“The dog wasn’t moving. At that point, you couldn’t see the train yet. You could hear it,” said Copeland, who lives across the street in a small white frame house near Bean Street and Dallas Daisy Road and is used to watching the train travel north.
Copeland said the man was bent down, pleading with the dog and repeating, “Come here. Come here.”