Woman allegedly texting walks into moving freight train

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.

Those who text and walk without looking up have fallen into fountains. They've also plunged into Lake Michigan.

It's perhaps a first, though, for someone who was allegedly texting to walk into a moving freight train. This, however, is what police in Lakeland, Fla., are intimating.

As the Lakeland Ledger reports, 27-year-old Sheena Keynna on Monday allegedly walked around railway crossing gates on Kentucky Avenue. They were lowered.

What she allegedly didn't notice was that a freight train was rolling through. The train struck her and tossed her into the air. Local police told the Ledger that witnesses said Keynna appeared to be texting.

Indeed, Sgt. Gary Gross of the Lakeland Police Department told me: "The pedestrian hit claims she was not [texting], however the conductor and engineer in the train said she was looking down at something in her hands."

It could have been a paperback of "War and Peace." It could be that she had some reminders written on her hands. Perhaps we will never know.

A CSX spokeswoman confirmed that local authorities and company representatives responded to the scene and that an investigation is under way.

"Accidents between trains and pedestrians or vehicles are all too common," the CSX representative said. "About every three hours somewhere in the US, a person or a vehicle is struck by a train. We urge drivers and pedestrians to use extreme caution around railroad tracks for their personal safety."

Gross told me that there will be no criminal charges and that Keynna suffered "a broken right arm and other minor injuries."

These days, few are the people who don't at some point have a gadget in her hands as they walk, their attention solely on its contents.

Potential disaster is but one message away.