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Man found dead on tracks in Glenwood

John Colson
Post Independent
Aspen, CO Colorado

GLENWOOD SPRINGS – A man apparently committed suicide Friday evening by throwing himself under the wheels of a train along Seventh Street west of the Amtrak depot, Glenwood Springs Police confirmed on Monday.

The Garfield County Coroner’s office confirmed on Monday that the dead man was Dion Herrera, 42, of Glenwood Springs and Highlands Ranch.

Herrera was discovered on the railroad tracks by passersby at approximately 11 p.m. Friday, according to Police Chief Terry Wilson.



The reporting parties first flagged down an oncoming train to keep it from running over Herrera’s body before calling police at 11:30 p.m.

“The focus on this is as a suicide,” Wilson said.




Wilson said Herrera is believed to have been killed a couple of hours earlier and some distance to the west of where he was found. Wilson said trains had been moving back and forth in the switching yard at about 9:30 that night, and no other trains had passed through the area between then and about 11 p.m.

After checking with railroad personnel, Wilson reported, “It would appear they had absolutely no idea that they had impacted anything or anyone.”

Wilson said Herrera apparently tried to throw himself under an Amtrak train at the Glenwood Springs depot on April 25.

That attempt failed when Herrera hit his head on the train’s undercarriage. He was taken to Valley View Hospital for treatment and later transferred to a facility on the Front Range, Wilson said.

Wilson said that his officers remembered seeing Herrera around the Glenwood Springs area over the past year or so.

Wilson said Herrera was not homeless, strictly speaking, because he would return to the Front Range periodically to live with family members.

Herrera was single, unemployed, and had only recently returned to the Glenwood Springs area following his recovery from the April 25 incident, according to Glenwood Springs police and the coroner’s office.

A funeral home in Pueblo is handling the arrangements for Herrera’s family.

jcolson@postindependent.com

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