By: Erinn McGuire
Hardeeville Today

Arnsdorff Memorial Fund

A memorial fund has been set up at South Carolina Bank & Trust at 21979 Whyte Hardee Blvd. in Hardeeville. Donations will help pay for funeral expenses for Taylor Arnsdorff, one of the four people killed in Monday’s train collision. Send donations to SCB&T, P.O. Box 505, Hardeeville, SC 29927, or drop off donations during business hours.

Hardeeville – Four people, including a 12-year-old girl, were killed late Monday night when the vehicle they were traveling in was struck by an Amtrak train in Hardeeville.

The vehicle apparently attempted to go around a crossing arm and was struck by the southbound train at the intersection of Main Street (S.C. 46) and U.S. 17 at 8:50 p.m., according to both Ted Felder, Hardeeville’s interim city manager, and an Amtrak spokeswoman.

“They tried to beat the train,” Felder said.
The vehicle – carrying four people, including a 12-year-old girl – was pushed down the track for about 1 mile before coming to a stop.”

Jason Scott, 33, Nancy Ratliff, 27, Melissa Thomas, 35, and Taylor Arnsdorff, 12, all of Hardeeville, were pronounced dead at the scene, according to Deputy Jasper County Coroner Jeremiah Vaigneur.

The little girl was a sixth-grader at Hardeeville Middle School and was a cheerleader for the Hardeeville Patriots football team.

Bereavement counselors were available Tuesday for children at the school to help with their classmate’s death, school officials said.

A memorial fund has been set up to help pay for Taylor’s funeral at the South Carolina Bank and Trust.

Vaigneur said he was not sure if the victims were related.

“All immediate family members have been notified and some are on their way from out of town,” he said.
It was not clear who was driving the four-door sedan.

Vaigneur said he couldn’t even tell the make and model because of the collision impact.
“It sustained massive damage,” he said.

The track speed for trains through that stretch of railway is 79 mph, said Karina Romero, an Amtrak spokeswoman.

“Though that hasn’t been confirmed, the train would have been traveling very close to that,” she said.
None of the 15 passengers or five Amtrak train employees was injured, Romero said, although one passenger was treated by emergency medical personnel after reporting respiratory problems.

School buses and taxis waited downtown to take the train’s passengers to Amtrak’s Savannah train station.

Theodore Brown of Newark, N.J., a passenger on the train, got off around midnight. Brown, whose final destination was Valdosta, Ga., said he only felt “a little jerk” upon impact. The No. 89 southbound Palmetto train began its route in New York City and ended in Savannah.

The vehicle had to be separated from the front of the train before the train could back up and make its way to the Main Street intersection.

A northbound train carrying cars from Sanford, Fla., to Lorton, Va., came upon the collision in Hardeeville and was “significantly delayed.” It was forced to stop for several hours, Romero said.
Trains finally began moving again shortly before 2 a.m.

According to records, there have been three train-related fatalities in Jasper County the past 32 years.

An elderly woman, Aretha Scott, was killed in 2006 in Ridgeland while she walked into the path of an Amtrak train. She was hearing impaired.

Two men were killed in 1977 at the Hardeeville crossing, according to a Federal Railroad Administration report. Officers at the time said the driver failed to stop.

In Monday’s collision, Felder said the safety crossing arms were in proper working order at the time of the crash.

The collision was still being investigated early Tuesday morning.

Bluffton Today reporter Frank Morris contributed to this story.