Metra UP-NW train strikes rideshare vehicle in Norwood Park taking teen to grad party, friends say

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A teen heading to a graduation party was among two people injured when a Metra UP-NW train struck a vehicle in Norwood Park on the Northwest Side.

A mangled white sedan was torn apart and left nearly in pieces on the side of the Metra tracks in a Friday afternoon accident that has upended families and close circles of young friends.

Firefighters raced to the intersection of Nagle and Avondale near Northwest Highway around 4 p.m. Friday. The sedan had driven around the downed crossing gates, Metra officials said, and the train couldn't avoid it.

Close friends of the young passenger say the teenage boy had just gotten in a rideshare car from his home in Norwood Park, headed to Evanston for a graduation party.

Friends, including the boy's girlfriend, grew worried when he didn't show up. The party's host said panic set in when they discovered a train had hit a car near his neighborhood.

Rescuers raced both the teenage passenger and the driver to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

The car at the scene was nearly unrecognizable, and the two people in the car were badly injured, according to friends and doctors.

Information on the rideshare driver's condition was not immediately available. First responders said it took several minutes to extricate him from the crushed vehicle.