Perhaps the most urgent question raised by this Atlanta Journal-Constitution story is not: how did Elijah Anderson manage to emerge from such a collision sufficiently unscathed to resume life as a normal kid, aside from a scar? Nor is it: why is his mother, represented by attorney Fred Lerner, planning to sue railroad CSX despite an investigative report exonerating the railroad and the general principle that right of ways are not for trespassing? No, the real question is: whose idea was it to take that camera shot of him on the tracks?
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““I’m so blessed. He’s so blessed,” the mom said. “We have all the presents we need.”” her mom said. I guess now she sees her son as her little goose that can lay golden eggs.
I’m hoping that a judge will see the posed photo of her kid on the tracks and immediately dismiss the case.
CSX should sue the mom for allowing her 4 y.o. to cause trouble.
I’m hoping that a judge will see the posed photo of her kid on the tracks and immediately dismiss the case.
The photo was taken a month after the accident, apparently by the newspaper that ran the story. In other words, it doesn’t seem to bear any relation to any issue of whether the railroad was negligent or not.
That’s pretty funny. That is the most pressing issue. It is amazing that there were no adults in the room who could say, “Ah, getting on that track is a bad idea.” But Reuven has it wrong that the child should pay for the bad judgment of the mother (and photographer, and writer of the story, and his/her editor). It has absolutely nothing to do with the case.
Presumably, it shows the mother still hasn’t learned anything from the experience.
“Here honey, I know you were hit by a train right here before but we want you to trespass and stand right there now so we can get the cutesy picture that newspaper readers love.” There’s really no proper amount of supervision for posing a 4 year old on train tracks. If he’s permitted to do it now, it stands to reason it wouldn’t have been against the rules before the accident.
If I had some spare time today (and I might! It’s a slow week), I’d take Flash and Photoshop and animate a train coming down those tracks, and little Elijah going flying….
“I just want them to put up a fence.”
Great, then the trains can run faster through your neighborhood!
…and another thing! If I had my son get run over by a train while I wasn’t at home, and I left a 13-year-old in charge of him…I might not want to open up a can of worms with a lawsuit, lest I end up facing criminal charges for negligence.
Perhaps it’s common for Georgians living near railroad tracks not to warn their children of the dangers that speeding trains pose.