One dead after SUV crashes into METRO train in Downtown Houston

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - One person is dead after a multi-vehicle crash that struck a METRO rail train Wednesday evening in Downtown Houston.

It happened at the McGowen station on Main Street just before 6 P.M.

METRO confirms the driver of a white SUV came down Main Street at a high rate of speed before striking two cars and flipping into the back of a stopped Northbound Red Line train.

Whitney Howard was the driver of one of those two vehicles struck. Howard says she was heading home from school at the time, and had been stopped at a red light on Main alongside the tracks.

"I got this really hard hit that pushed me up a little bit," says Howard, who says she had been talking via Bluetooth to a friend at the time. "She asked 'what was that' and I said 'girl I just got hit!' I didn't know what to do after that because it's like I lost consciousness. I didn't know. The airbags deployed, and so I ended up looking forward and I saw this white SUV airborne and it hit the train. He had to have been going so fast."

METRO did not have a count for the number of people injured or transported in the incident, but did confirm there had been passengers onboard the light rail train at the time of the crash.

Eye witnesses believe the driver may have tried to drive around the stopped cars using the the tracks.

Howard described the shock of her experience, saying, "when something like that happens you don't know which way to go. You don't know whether you should get out or stay in, or look around for if there's more danger. I didn't even know where he hit me from."

METRO service was temporarily interrupted after the crash but had been restored in both directions by 8:45 P.M. The investigation into why and how this incident occurred is ongoing.