An 85-year-old Kenai Peninsula man was struck by a train while walking on railroad tracks early Saturday morning, Alaska State Troopers said.
At 3:44 a.m. Saturday, Seward troopers received a call reporting a person had been hit by an Alaska Railroad train near Mile 23.5 of the Seward Highway, troopers wrote in an online dispatch Sunday.
Ronald Jackson of Crown Point, a small community north of Seward, was "walking on the tracks when he was struck," the dispatch said.
The McKinley Explorer train, a passenger train traveling from Seward to Whittier, was traveling northbound when it struck the man, who had been walking on the tracks with his dog, according to Tim Sullivan, manager of external affairs for the Alaska Railroad.
Jackson was flown to Anchorage with serious injuries, troopers said. On Sunday evening he was listed in critical condition at Providence Alaska Medical Center. Sullivan on Sunday said he didn't know the fate of the dog.
After the incident, a new crew took over for the one that had been working aboard the train, Sullivan said. Crew members who were working at the time are taking a three-day administrative leave, he said.
"It's a pretty traumatic situation for folks on the train as well as a horrible situation for the man hit and his family," Sullivan said.