A Brown Line train hit a car that went around the gates at Rockwell. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Patty Wetli

LINCOLN SQUARE — Markeita Berry knows how lucky she is to have walked away from a collision with a Brown Line train at Rockwell Thursday afternoon.

"I'm supposed to be dead," said Berry, who lives in Englewood. "The impact hit so hard."

At approximately 3 p.m., Berry was traveling south on Rockwell and saw the crossing gates down at the track but didn't hear or see a train, so she drove her van around the gates.

"I thought it was just a test" of the gates, she said. "I'm used to CHOO-CHOO" when a train approaches.

A Loop-bound train clipped the rear of her van, which then spun into a car waiting on the northbound side of the track.

"She got hit by the train and then hit our car," said Marten Adam, a passenger in the second vehicle.

Berry's van suffered busted windows and the force of the collision knocked out her axle, but she escaped with little more than a sore back.

"I was in the wrong," Berry said. "I'll never do that again."

Service on the Brown Line was temporarily halted between Kimball and Western stops but was restored by 4 p.m., according to CTA.

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