Tragic Train Accident Claims Life of Rising Journalist in Chicago

Promising Journalist’s Life Cut Short

Grace Ben­tkows­ki, a 22-year-old asso­ciate cre­ative pro­duc­er for News­Na­tion, was killed on July 25th while cross­ing the train tracks at the Hegewisch sta­tion in Chicago. 

Ben­tkows­ki, who had recent­ly grad­u­at­ed from Ball State Uni­ver­si­ty, was com­mut­ing home to Dyer, Indi­ana via the South Shore Line when the fatal acci­dent occurred.

Family Demands Safer Crossings

Sur­veil­lance footage showed Ben­tkows­ki fol­low­ing sev­er­al oth­ers in cross­ing the tracks, but her view was obstruct­ed by a large pil­lar, pre­vent­ing her from see­ing the oncom­ing train. 

Her fam­i­ly is now fight­ing for bet­ter safe­ty mea­sures at the sta­tion, cit­ing a lack of sig­nage and no safe­ty arms sur­round­ing the tracks.

“It’s such a safe­ty issue, this is 2024, I don’t under­stand why there isn’t ‘stop, look, lis­ten’ safe­ty signs — it makes no sense,” said Ben­tkowski’s father, Phil Ben­tkows­ki. “She was thrown 50 feet.”

Community Mourns Promising Talent

Fam­i­ly and friends remem­bered Ben­tkows­ki as a hard­work­ing jour­nal­ist with a bright future ahead of her. 

“She was beau­ti­ful inside and out,” said her grand­moth­er, Maryann O’Neill. “She knew what she want­ed to do in life and it was the news.”

The North­ern Indi­ana Com­muter Trans­porta­tion Dis­trict, which oper­ates the South Shore Line, stat­ed they believe the sta­tion is safe but will be adding inter­im warn­ing signs and insti­tut­ing a train whis­tle board to sound as trains approach the crossings.