Man killed when train hits truck
A Post Falls man died Monday after he drove a semitruck over railroad tracks and was hit by a train.
Gary L. Gibson, 61, was driving west about 3 p.m. on West Hayden Avenue just west of Highway 41, about two miles north of Post Falls, where Union Pacific Railroad tracks cross the road. He slowed down at the tracks but didn’t yield to a train chugging southwest, according to an Idaho State Police report.
The train struck the semitruck and Gibson was thrown from the cab. He was pronounced dead at Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d’Alene, the report says.
An investigation was ongoing.
– Nick Eaton
Coeur d’Alene
Apprenticeship program grows
A record number of students has enrolled in North Idaho College’s apprenticeship programs. Enrollment grew by 5.1 percent, to 455 students this school year compared with 433 students in 2006-07.
NIC offers apprenticeship programs for electricians, plumbers, sheet metal workers, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning technicians.
New scholarships being offered to trades students have helped boost enrollment in the programs, NIC Workforce Development Director Marie Price said in a news release.
NIC offers 160 hours of related instruction each year for each of the three apprenticeship programs.
– Meghann M. Cuniff
Spokane
No official word on climbing deaths
No official word came Monday on how a Spokane man and his 12-year-old son died last week while mountain climbing, but a close friend has a pretty good idea.
“They fell definitely on ice in the couloir,” said Paul Fish, co-worker of victim Otto Vaclavek and a member of the search party.
That’s where 53-year-old Vaclavek and his son, Max, were found dead Saturday – the couloir, or gulley, between two popular climbing peaks south of Leavenworth, Wash.
But Vaclavek was a climber with 30 years of experience and his son was also a skilled climber, Fish said. The two were on an expedition the weekend of Sept. 15 and 16, but didn’t come home as expected. Vaclavek’s wife reported them missing Wednesday.
A search party that grew to 62 combed the area and found them dead Saturday in the gulley between Colchuck Peak and Dragontail Peak. Sheriff’s Deputy Gene Ellis said Monday that the Chelan County coroner had not yet released official causes of death.
– Nick Eaton