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CLIFFVIEW PILOT photo
The seventh-grader was hit just before 5 p.m. by a Hoboken-bound commuter train at the Outwater Lane crossing, several yards from NJ Transit’s new Plauderville train station, right on the Saddle Brook border.
“He crossed as one train passed,” a woman who lives across the street from the site told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “But then another train on the other [southbound] side hit him.”
The Razor scooter and both of the 12-year-old Thomas Jefferson Middle School pupil’s sneakers were found nearby.
Outwater Lane was shut down at and near the tracks.
Quickly on the scene were authorities from several agencies, including New Jersey State Police and NJ Transit investigators, as news choppers hovered above. Officers set up a blue tarp as a tent to shield and protect the body.
A friend of the Lanza Avenue family said they are obviously unable to make any sense of the awful tragedy.
“Everyone is in shock right now,” she told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Because his mother works part-time for the Garfield School District, news of the blue-eyed boy’s death has spread through the community and beyond.
CLIFFVIEW PILOT won’t publish his name. The family is enduring more than enough right now.
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