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Crash mobilizes midnight rescue©Los Angeles Times © St. Petersburg Times, published March 19, 2001 BROOKS, Iowa -- Investigators picked through muddy wreckage Sunday as they sought to determine why an Amtrak train bound for Northern California derailed here, killing one passenger, injuring 90 others and spurring residents from a dozen small farm towns to mobilize a midnight rescue effort. The California Zephyr was heading from Chicago to Emeryville, Calif., its passengers dozing or playing cards or toasting St. Patrick's Day in the lounge when a jolt shook the train just before midnight Saturday. Then the lights went out. With a screech and a lurch, several cars toppled down a steep embankment, while others tipped sideways or bounced off the rails. "Total darkness," said Ben Mrugala, a passenger from Wisconsin. "Mass confusion." Some passengers were thrown against the ceilings of their cars. Others felt their cabins tilt and found themselves walking on the walls as they scrambled in the dark to find an exit. "I felt a little jiggle and then the brakes went on, hard," said John Connair, who was heading to Colorado for a ski vacation with his wife and their three children. "You could hear the gravel, the wood, the metal all tearing apart. We bounced off the walls. It went on and on." All 15 cars and two locomotives derailed. The wreckage stretched for a quarter of a mile. "The way the train looked, I'm still amazed there weren't more injuries," said Larry Pond, chief of the volunteer fire department in the nearby town of Nodaway. In fact, only seven passengers were hospitalized, two in serious condition. Most of the injuries were minor. Amtrak did not confirm the name of the passenger killed, but the Associated Press identified her as Stella Riehl, 69, of Colorado Springs, Colo. Her son, Charlie Romstad, 46, told the news service that she was traveling home from Des Moines with the ashes of her brother, who died recently. Rescue workers said the passengers seemed amazingly calm as they crawled over the tumble of luggage and into the frosty night. A few had "a quiver in their voice," Pond said. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 75 miles southwest of Des Moines on a clear night, on a straight stretch of track. Early reports indicated the Zephyr was traveling at about 50 mph, considerably slower than its usual speed of 80 mph. The Zephyr that derailed amid the cornfields of Adams County was carrying 15 crew members and 195 passengers, including a group of Des Moines high school students heading west for a spring break ski trip. Getting those aboard out of the wreckage took some doing. The Adams County Sheriff's Department took control. But it has only four members -- including the sheriff. So a major volunteer effort was mobilized. Volunteer firefighters and ambulance drivers from 13 tiny towns rushed to the scene. Others raced to the Nodaway Community Center, where they dipped into the stash of Bingo Night goodies to set up hot dogs, ham, cheese and hot drinks for the victims. A hospital dropped off stacks of blankets. The local grocer pitched in with hot dog buns and sandwich bread. Residents who heard of the accident on police scanners or on the radio hopped in their pickups -- by now, it was after midnight -- to help ferry stranded passengers from the wrecked train to the paved road 2 miles away. There, they were loaded into school buses and driven to the hospital or the community center.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
