KANSAS CITY --- A miscommunication nearly cost a dump truck driver his life Monday afternoon in Kansas City. A moving train ended up on the same track where a crew was busy working.

Moments before an oncoming train hit his dump truck -- and dragged and mangled it -- the driver leaped out of his cab, the Kansas City Star reported.

The collision happened about 2:15 p.m. Aug. 24 on the southernmost of three tracks behind the Tension Envelope building on E. 19th St.

When Kansas City police officer Rob Shorrock arrived on the scene, he saw the crushed truck and figured someone had probably been killed. He and firefighters hiked down a steep embankment to the railroad tracks, where they found the driver. He had just minor injuries.

Shorrock told the Star that the dump truck driver and a man operating another piece of heavy equipment saw the train rounding a curve and got out of the way just in time. Firefighters used a basket and a system of pulleys to lift the truck driver up the embankment and into an ambulance. Nobody else was injured.

Hazardous materials crews were called to remove spilled diesel fuel and coal from the train.