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Man blames train crash at zoo on "texting"

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BATON ROUGE - A Florida man vacationing in Baton Rouge says a woman texting while operating a train at the zoo led to it crashing into a gate in the middle of the tracks.

Robert Walker, his wife and his two daughters went to BREC Zoo on Sunday and rode the train around the park.

He noticed the driver texting and he says she did not see the fence. 

"It sent the chain linked fenced and the pipes all shooting back toward the cars and we were like right behind the driver and we came within one foot of being impaled," Walker said.

Walker confronted the operator about her texting while driving the train and she replied, "God doggit. I was hoping nobody was watching."

BREC is investigating the accident to see if the driver failed to follow policy.

"You should not be on your phone when you're driving any sort of BREC vehicle," BREC Communications Direct Cheryl Michelet said.

Michelet said a violation like this could me someone gets fired.

"We'll continue to stress customer service because it's a customer service issue," she said.

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