Petaluma woman hit, killed by snow train

<p>It started as a walk through powdery snow on what they thought was a hiking trail near a ski resort outside Soda Springs.</p><p>That walk, however, turned to tragedy Thursday afternoon when Sydney Parks, 59, of Petaluma and her 24-year-old son, Allen Young, saw a plow train racing toward them through the snow.</p><p>Young, who lives in Davis, and his mother, a nurse practitioner at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Rafael, scrambled to get out of the way of the oncoming train.</p><p>Parks was struck head-on by the train and flung about 25 feet from the tracks by the train's snow grille. Young, who was also struck by the train, watched his mother die.</p><p>"I hollered over to where my mom was," Young said, speaking by phone from a room in the hospital where his mother worked many years.</p><p>"She was opening and closing her eyes," he said. "I told her I loved her and that I was OK and that I would grow up to be a strong man and that I would take care of our family."</p><p>From his hospital bed, Young, a young journalist who graduated from Casa Grande High School and studied literature and journalism at UC Santa Cruz, described the Christmas Day events with uncanny and at times graphic detail.</p><p>Young and his mother thought they were hiking on a trail when a Union Pacific Railroad train plowing snow off the tracks approached them, according to officials and eyewitnesses.</p><p>The train sounded its whistle and started an emergency stop, but the two mistakenly moved into the train's path during whiteout conditions and poor visibility, said Nevada County Sheriff's Deputy Ron Smith.</p><p>"Her son had her by the shoulder and was trying to pull her out of the way of the train," Smith said. "The train hit her full on and hit him as well."</p><p>Young was taken to a Truckee hospital, where he underwent surgery for injuries to his arm and his right foot, which Young said was "shattered."</p><p>"My mother slipped," Young said. "I reached out to grab under her arm. She wasn't making it up the embankment as fast as she needed to. She was stuck. I planted a foot down in the ground and attempted to hoist her up. At that moment we were both slammed."</p><p>Young's father, Roger Young, a retired contractor who was previously married to Parks, described his son's actions as heroic.</p><p>"You could see how they could fall in the powdered snow and they couldn't get their footing," he said.</p><p>Allen Young said he and his mother realized they were walking on railroad tracks at one point just before the train appeared. But before they noticed the metal rails in the snow, there was no indication that they were on a railway line.</p><p>"We made it about 500 feet, walking southeast," he said. "And this train just came roaring up. It looked like a roller coaster and it was a plow train."</p><p>Young said that after the train stopped, a "gentleman named Jeremy" came up and told him he tried to stop the train as fast as he could.</p><p>"He spoke with me and held my hand," said Young. "He was just about as heroic of a stranger as one could ask for under these panicked circumstances."</p><p>Young said another man, an emergency responder, told him that his mom was dead and that they were going to focus their efforts on him.</p><p>Friday evening, Young remembered the close relationship he had with his mother, a well-known nursing professional at the San Rafael Kaiser facility.</p><p>"My mom virtually raised me from the time I was in the crib to the time I was 24," he said. "She gave me all the tools that I'll need to have a strong productive and happy life."</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@</p><p>pressdemocrat.com.</p>