3 dead, dozens injured in Missouri train crash

An Amtrak passenger train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago collided with a truck Monday in a remote area of ​​Missouri, killing three people and injuring dozens more when the cars went off the tracks and fell on their sides, police said. authorities.

Two of the dead were on the train and one in the truck, Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman Justin Dunn said. It was not immediately clear how many people were injured, the patrol said, but hospitals reported receiving more than 40 patients from the crash and expected more.

The Southwest Chief of amtrak It was carrying about 207 passengers and crew members when the collision occurred near Mendon at a rural intersection on a gravel road with no lights or electronic controls, according to the highway patrol. Officials were still trying to determine the exact number of people on board. Seven cars derailed, the patrol said.

Rob Nightingale said he was falling asleep in his cabin when the lights flickered and the train rocked from side to side.

“It was like slow motion. Then suddenly I felt her leaning towards me. I saw the ground come up to my window, and all the debris and dust,” Nightingale told The Associated Press. “Then he fell on his side and there was complete silence. I sat there and didn’t hear a thing. Then I heard a girl next door crying.”

Nightingale was uninjured, and he and other passengers were able to exit the overturned train car through a window.

The collision tore apart the dump truck, he said.

“It was on all the tracks,” said Nightingale, an art gallery owner from Taos, New Mexico, who said he regularly rides Amtrak to Chicago.

It’s too early to speculate on why the truck was on the tracks, said Jennifer Homendy, president of the National Transportation Safety Board. A team of investigators from the NTSB will arrive Tuesday, she said. Trains won’t be able to run on the tracks for a “matter of days” while they gather evidence, she added.

At one point, KMBC-TV’s helicopter video showed train cars on their sides as emergency services used ladders to climb onto one of them. Six medical helicopters parked nearby were waiting to transport patients.

About 20 state and local law enforcement agencies, ambulance services, fire departments and helicopter medical services responded, Dunn said. First responders arrived within 20 minutes of receiving a 911 call, she said.

Passenger Dian Couture was in the dining car with her husband celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary when she heard a loud noise and the train lurched and then crashed into the side.

“People on our left side flew up and hit us, and then we stood on the windows on the right side of the car,” Couture told WDAF-TV. “Two gentlemen at the front came up, stacked up a bunch of stuff and went out the window and literally took us off our hands.”

Among the passengers were 16 youth and eight adults from two Boy Scout troops traveling home to Appleton, Wisconsin, after a backcountry excursion at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. No one in the group was seriously injured, said Scott Armstrong, director of national media relations for the Boy Scouts of America. Scouts administered first aid to several injured passengers, including the driver of the dump truck, Armstrong said.

[Con información de The Associated Press]

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