Two minutes of mindful reaction could have stopped the horrifying train collision which happened just north of Platteville nearly two weeks ago, according to a rail safety expert who watched the video and was interviewed about it by The Gazette.

That’s the time it took from the moment police opened a police cruiser door and put a suspect inside to when the SUV was slammed by a Union Pacific (UP) locomotive and dragged down the tracks. That two minutes, said Craig Cox, would have been just enough time for officers to get the car out of the way.

“Once they put her in the vehicle they should have moved it. Their first priority should have been getting her off of the railroad tracks once they had her detained,” said Cox. “Two minutes is plenty of time. But the vehicle should not have been parked on the tracks in the first place.”

Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20, of Greeley, handcuffed behind the driver’s seat and surrounded by a police cruiser cage, miraculously survived the collision. Her attorney, Paul Wilkinson said the train was likely going around 55 miles per hour when it collided into the vehicle.

Rios-Gonzalez is a Transportation Safety Administration agent.

Union Pacific representatives said the locomotive would have needed at least a mile of track to stop.

Craig Cox, who worked for Union Pacific for over 30 years as a locomotive engineer and eventually oversaw safety and operation issues, said he was “dumbfounded” after watching the eight-minute police body and dash cam video. “There was negligence on every officer that was there and involved prior to impact. There’s no way that not one single officer didn’t realize that the car was on the railroad tracks,” he said.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation still has the case and will deliver it to the Weld County District Attorney’s office once interviews are finished. Spokesperson Krista Henery confirmed that charges would potentially involve the original road rage incident, and also could include the Ft. Lupton and Platteville police departments.

Cox said that when law enforcement is responding to an incident near train tracks, they are required to let the railroad’s Response Management Communication Center or their dispatch know.

There were three officers on scene that night. Two of them were looking for a gun in the suspect’s car when the oncoming locomotive made its first warning bellow, the video shows. But at that time, they were talking about whether the suspect had tried to evade them or whether she threw a gun out of the window and thus may not have heard the initial horn, the video shows.

The next set of horns came 8 seconds later and continued honk with urgency as the train’s lights grew brighter, the video shows, but by that time it was too late to react. On the video, the Platteville officer looks confused as if he didn’t know the suspect was inside.

Within seconds, his police vehicle with Rios-Gonzalez trapped inside, is hit by the oncoming locomotive.

The incident began Sept. 16 in the 7 p.m. hour with a report to Platteville police that someone was brandishing a handgun on Highway 85 “somewhere in the Ft. Lupton area” according to a Ft. Lupton police department press release.

The Platteville officer was the first to pursue the suspected truck and was in the process of getting Rios-Gonzalez to come out. She did, eventually, with her hands up. She asked for her cellphone and in response to an officer’s question, said there was no gun in the truck.

Authorities later found the gun in the truck.

The video, obtained by Gazette partner 9News, shows a Ft. Lupton police car racing to assist the Platteville officer. The suspect, Rios-Gonzalez, had pulled over in what Ft. Lupton police called a “high risk” vehicle at the intersection of Highway 85 and Weld County Road 36.

The Platteville officer’s patrol car was sitting on the train tracks and Rios-Gonzalez’ truck was parked in front of it. There are no railroad crossing gates and no lights at the intersection although there are white railroad crossing signs on each side for oncoming traffic to see.

The eight minutes sent to KUSA was only a snippet of what Wilkinson said is at least 20 hours of total video in the investigation.

Rios-Gonzalez was released from the hospital over the weekend after being treated for nine broken ribs, a broken arm, a broken leg, a fractured sternum and head injuries and is recovering according to Wilkinson.

The fact that Rios-Gonzalez survived may be due to a couple of fortunate flukes. Sources close to the investigation say, she was enclosed in a police cruiser cage which, ironically, is designed with a police officer’s safety in mind. Instead, it was the suspect who survived because though the police vehicle was crushed into a mound of metal, the cage provided a second level of protection, sources said. She was sitting behind the driver’s seat and the train hit the opposite side also helped cushion the blow, said the source.

Reached by The Gazette, a spokeswoman for Union Pacific, said that the conductor was shaken up but not injured. Robynn Tysver said that the UP train did have a front camera, but that the company will not release it as it is a part of the investigation.

The Gazette asked to hear the black box, but Tysver also denied that request.

A number of agencies are investigating this case. The Fort Lupton Police Department is handling the criminal investigation of the reported road rage incident. Colorado State Patrol is investigating the train crash into the police car. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is investigating the woman’s injuries while in police custody.