Jensen Beach - Wednesday January 10, 2024: A pickup truck crashed into a railroad switch on the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) tracks near the downtown Jensen Beach roundabout early Sunday morning.
The pickup was heading south, ahead of a oncoming southbound train. The train’s conductor had to make an emergency stop in order to avoid a collision.
Martin County Sheriff deputies responded just before 1 a.m. Sunday. They found 39-year old Kenneth Allen Deering of Kingman Arizona at the scene. He told the deputies he'd just left a bar in Jensen Beach, and didn't know how he ended up on the tracks.
He claimed he wasn't driving, and blamed the incident on a woman he said he met at the bar. But he didn’t know her name, or where she went. Witnesses however told the deputies that Deering was the only person in the car.
Deering had three prior DUI convictions, according to the Sheriff's office. Two of those DUIs occurred in Missouri, and one in South Carolina. MCSO deputies charged him with another DUI and because this was his fourth, its a felony, and he was booked into the Martin County Jail.
