PayPal vice-president Eric Salvatierra dies after being hit by commuter train

A top PayPal executive has been killed after being hit by a commuter train as he stood on the tracks in Califoia.

The body of Eric Salvatierra, 39, PayPal's vice-president and a married father of three, was identified Sunday by San Mateo County coroner's investigators.

Caltrain, the train operator, said Mr Salvatierra was standing on the northbound tracks on Friday moing in Menlo Park when hit.

As a father of three girls under the age of 10, family say there wasn't anything that suggested he was suicidal as most cases of train-related deaths are reported.

Friends and relatives have called him a doting dad, and the family was active in the community of the Universalist Unitarian Church they attended.

'For me and to all of us, this is just an incredible, unexpected loss,' said his uncle, Oscar Salvatierra speaking to Mercury News.

'He was an individual who you would never see visibly upset,' he said. 'I was proud of how he lived life.'

Another unusual wrinkle in the case is that he was standing on the tracks with his bike, which seems odd if it were a planned suicide.

That said, the statistics stick with self harm, as 13 of the 16 deaths that occurred on Caltrain tracks in 2011 were confirmed suicides. Mr Salvatierra's is the fourth death so far this year.

Mr Salvatierra had worked for PayPal, the online payment service, for about five years after being recruited by eBay, which owns PayPal, to Silicon Valley.

Prior to that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and graduated from Georgetown summa cum laude and rowed on the crew team.

Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced while family are reportedly arriving in Phoenix where Mr Salvatierra grew up.