Pregnant Teenage Model Killed By Moving Train During Railway Photo Shoot
An aspiring teenage model was recently killed by a freight train during a photo shoot in Navasota, Texas. Her mother told the Associated Press the 19-year-old was having her photos taken in hopes of launching her modeling career when she stepped off one set of tracks to avoid a train and was hit by a second on the opposing tracks.
The driver of the train that hit Fredzania "Zanie" Thompson reportedly warned her as the train approached. "Apparently, there was a photo session being held on the tracks," Jeff De Graff, a spokesman for the train company Union Pacific, told the Navasota Examiner. "As the train approached, the crew saw the photographer and the other individual on the tracks, alerted them with the train horn and also began the emergency stopping process on the train."
Read: Gisele Bündchen Makes Twice As Much As Her Famous Football Player Husband, Tom Brady
Thompson's photo shoot would be her first and last in her modeling career. As she stood between a split set of train tracks, witnesses told Navasota investigators she stood between the tracks and watched for the visible oncoming train in one direction. She tried to cross to the other tracks to avoid it and was hit by the second oncoming train with her back toward it. She died on her way to a local hospital.
"We have an ongoing investigation but nothing to suggest there is any criminal activity," Navasota's police Chief Justin Leeth told BBC's Newsbeat. Thompson's funeral was scheduled to take place on Saturday.
Thompson attended Navasota High School and received athletic scholarships after her graduation, but she had a childhood dream of becoming a model and put her college education on hold to pursue it. "She was more interested in modeling," the teen's mother Hakamie Stevenson told the local newspaper. "That's definitely what she wanted to do. It's what she had started to do the day she was deceased."
Just two weeks prior to Thompson's death, she called her 25-year-old fiance Darnell Chatman to tell him she was pregnant. "She said, 'You're going to be a dad again," Chatman recalled.
Another woman, whose name has not yet been released, was killed by a train in Pascagoula, Mississippi Thursday afternoon at a railroad crossing, the Washington Times reported.
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.