911 TRAIN SHOCK
The 911 operator who took the first call reporting a deadly train derailment in Washington state could barely believe her ears.
“Holy cow! So the train is actually on the road?” she asked, according to a recording made public Sunday.
The call was received by the South Sound 911 center in Tacoma, according to the Seattle Times, which posted the 1-minute, 23-second audio clip online.
“911, what are you reporting?” the operator asks.
“Hi, I’m reporting a train jackknife,” an unidentified woman responds.
“A train?” “A train, girl.” After the caller locates the crash “down by the Nisqually Gorge,” the operator asks, “Does it look like anybody needs medical aid?”
“I would imagine so, darling, because it came off the edge and it came right down on the I-5 southbound,” the caller said.
The dispatcher almost loses her cool, saying, “Oh, cra-” before catching herself.
“OK, let me get State Patrol on the line with us. Holy cow! So the train is actually on the road?” she said.
“Yeah, I believe so,” the caller answered.
The call was made at 7:35 a.m. Monday, just one minute after Amtrak 501 plunged off an overpass and onto the busy highway, killing three passengers and injuring around 100 people, including some traveling in motor vehicles.
The train, which was making its maiden high-speed run from Seattle to Portland, was traveling nearly 80 mph in a 30-mph zone, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Another 911 caller breathlessly described the devastation in one of the flood of calls that followed the crash, the Seattle Times reported.
“The train is hanging off the overpass. It’s landed on vehicles and there’s people like . . . there’s, there’s, there’s bodies laying ev- erywhere,” the woman said.
“How many patients are there, do you think?” the dispatcher asked.
“I see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten — probably a dozen,” the woman answered. “And there’s cars under the train.”
Despite the chaos, someone rescued a baby who survived the derailment without a scratch — handing the child to Dr. Nathan Selden, who had stopped to help out as he drove past the crash scene while running Christmas errands.
The ticklish baby was smiling and giggling, the Seattle Times reported.