Semi owner ordered to pay train engineer for injuries

[E.M. Bell]

MANKATO, MN ?

A former Union Pacific engineer was awarded more than $1 million by a Blue Earth County jury for injuries he received in a train crash that killed a semi driver west of Mankato in 2004.

In a unanimous vote, the jury decided the Mankato company that owns the semi, Southern Minnesota Construction, should pay 48-year-old Kenneth Frazier of Minneapolis $1,142,000, said Frazier?s attorney, Robert J. King Jr. of Minneapolis. The award came Thursday night, just a few hours after three days of testimony in a District Court ended.

Frazier and a railroad conductor, Andrew Wentzlaff of Butterfield, were injured when the 75-car train they were pulling with two engines smashed into the cab of a semi driven by 66-year-old Robert Wayne Holt of New London. It took about a half mile for the train to stop, but it was going nearly full speed when it hit the semi cab and sent it tumbling toward nearby Minneopa Creek.