Former Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA) was one of the passengers on the Amtrak train that derailed Tuesday night near Philadelphia, killing six people and injuring more than a hundred others. A veteran of the Iraq War, Murphy reportedly kicked out the window of the train car and helped take care of the wounded. He also tweeted some of the first photos to reveal the wreckage inside the train and call attention to the disaster.
In an interview with ThinkProgress, Murphy described what he experienced inside Train 188 as it rolled off the tracks.
I’m sure you’ve been telling this story to a lot of people today but could you talk about what happened on the train? How did you feel?
It was a regular trip, I left early in the morning for Washington, I did an event about legal services appropriation that help 27,000 veterans that live in poverty and then did an event at the American Red Cross in the afternoon and I was on the first train out of there at 7:10, the regional train. The train was a little late leaving but I was on the train, I was in the café car where there’s table and bench seating. Table next to me was Sen. Tom Carper from Delaware, who got off in Wilmington. I talked to him earlier and said thanks for your service, I’ll see you soon. Then we got to Philadelphia. I’m on the next stop in Trenton, NJ, I’m right over the river in Bucks County.
The next thing you know, there were pretty violent vibrations, I don’t know if there were brakes being slammed on, but then the train tilted to the left and then immediately to the right and just came out and our part kind of jack-knifed out. Everyone on my side of the train basically flew to the other side.
Can you describe the damage you saw? How fast did this happen?
It happened so fast, it was surreal. But there was a few moments where I thought I was going to die and that was one of them. The other times were in combat. I’m 6’1″, 200 pounds, I got thrown from one end of the train to the other head first. When the train stopped sliding, I was kind of on my head, I just pulled myself over and checked my arms and my legs to make sure they were still there. The guy to my left was okay, and the guy to my right was unconscious so I kind of just grabbed him and slapped his face a little bit and said, “Hey buddy you okay, wake up.” Once he was okay I kind of started pulling myself up even more and rise up. I saw that the window with the emergency exit was now on the ceiling, so I climbed on top of the long table and pulled on the red lever and punched out the window and started helping people down out the window. And then I just checked on the other side of the café car because there was screaming and some cries for help. Then I just climbed over the cantina cart over to the other side and was trying to be helpful. There were two people who were in really bad shape.
Is Amtrak part of your routine? How often do you ride the train?
Yeah I’m on the Amtrak train usually once if not twice, either to come down to D.C. or head up to New York so it’s pretty routine. And that’s why to see a tragedy like this happen is pretty jarring.
We don’t really know anything yet about what caused the derailment. But do you think there’s anything we can do to prevent this kind of thing from happening or at least reduce the risk of something like this happening?
Well, I think America should try to be number one in everything. And the fact that we’re getting our heads kicked in with infrastructure by China and European countries is sad and all it takes is an investment. It’s imperative for Congress to do the right thing.
That’s how I feel about the policy question but there were six lives that were lost and we gotta make sure we’re praying for those families and dozens and dozens of folks who are severely injured. Our hearts and prayers go out to those folks and hopefully they’re going to be okay.
Anything else people should take into account here or that you’d like people to think about?
When tragedies like that happen, it’s amazing to see the response by police and firefighters. Here you have train tracks with vast casualties, live wires that if someone touches them they’ll be electrocuted. And to see the police and firefighters were literally there climbing on top of these train cars, the ladders to climb into these cabs to help people and risking their lives is pretty remarkable. There’s no doubt that there’s some reports that need to be done on law enforcement. But we can keep in mind that these are good people who are trying to do the right thing to protect all of us. We should be thankful for that.