News from Across the Region | Charlotte Observer

Infant in crash at train crossing dies

The infant who survived a train-car crash Friday died Saturday from injuries sustained in the crash.

Skylar Brady of Johnston County died at WakeMed in Raleigh, hospital spokeswoman Maria Fry said. He was a week old.

Skylar had been in critical condition after the accident near U.S. 70 west of Princeton.

The passenger-side collision with a Norfolk Southern freight train killed Skylar's parents, Brannon Worth Brady, 25, and his fiancée, Crystal Lee Higgins, 22, both of Princeton.

They were taking Skylar to his first medical checkup.

The railroad crossing, which sees about 200 vehicles a day, has no signals or gates to warn of trains but is on a list of crossings to receive them.

There are more than 1,000 crossings in North Carolina with no mechanical warning devices.

Charlotte

The Black Woman's Voice – a panel discussion hosted by the Urban League of Central Carolinas – will join the lineup of the first Run & Shoot Filmworks African-American Film Festival in Charlotte.

The festival runs Sept. 18-20 around the city. The Black Woman's Voice panel runs from 7-9 p.m. Sept. 19 at Ballantyne Village Theatre. The free discussion will be about the intersection of race, class and gender in the lives of Charlotte's black women.

For information, call the Urban League at 704-373-225,6 ext. 205, visit www.urbanleaguecc.org, or e-mail info@urbanleaguecc.org.

Gaston County | Lake Wylie

Investigators identified the body of a man found floating in Lake Wylie last weekend as Ronald Butler, reported the Observer's news partner, WCNC-TV.

A boater found Butler's body near the Seven Oaks Bridge in Gaston County last Saturday. Butler had been missing for two days.

The medical examiner says the probable cause of death was drowning. WCNC-TV.

Onslow County | Jacksonville

A 10-year-old girl died Saturday afternoon after the inner tube she was sitting in struck a channel marker in the Intracoastal Waterway a few miles north of Surf City.

The girl, whose name was not released, was being pulled by an adult male who was driving a personal watercraft, said Officer Doug Jones, with the law enforcement division of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

“Basically he wasn't aware that the tube had got kicked out to the side a little bit and basically pulled the child on the tube into a channel marker,” Jones said.

“It wasn't like a loss of control because of speed, it wasn't anything like that,” he said. The personal watercraft was traveling about 20 mph.