Updated on: 10/12/2018
Through public disclosure requests, Davis Law Group, P.S., obtained 911 audio recordings from multiple victims of the Dec. 18, 2017, Amtrak Cascades train derailment in Dupont, Washington.
Davis Law Group is representing multiple victims of the derailment, which claimed the lives of three people and injured dozens more. The National Transportation Safety Board continues to look into the cause of the derailment, an investigation that is expected to last 12-24 months.
'I Hope Everybody's OK'
In one 911 recording, a woman had just made it under the Interstate 5 overpass when she was hit by what she thought was a mudslide.
The airbags in her car were deployed. Her car was covered in mud and she whimpered through her description of the glass and mud in her vehicle.
She attempted to paint a picture of what happened in the catastrophic accident.
“I’m the only car besides a semi that made it through the train derailment,” the woman said. “I was right at the front when it came.”
“And did the train fall down onto I-5?” the dispatcher asked.
“I can’t tell, looks like it. I just saw a huge — I thought it was a mudslide. A huge cloud of mud and dirt came and hit my car and spun me around. ... God, I hope everybody is OK.”
The woman described how I-5 was blocked by the train derailment and that no cars could get through.
'There's Quite A Few People With Bloody Faces'
In a different 911 call, a woman called emergency dispatchers to report the derailment.
Initially, the dispatcher asks if the caller is reporting the train accident. The woman answers, ‘yes,’ before the dispatcher asks if the woman saw it happen.
“I’m in it. We’ve just gotten out of the train,” the woman says.
The woman was in Car 6 that derailed, but was not injured in the incident, which claimed the lives of three people and injured dozens.
As the dispatcher and woman continued to talk, the woman describes the scene in detail.
“There’s quite a few people with bloody faces,” she says.