Emergency responders tell of finding shattered train

Noelle Foizen at first thought the emergency alert of a train wreck must be a continuation of the previous day's mass-casualty training.

Or maybe her boss was messing with her - he demanded that people be ready for anything.

In seconds, it became apparent to Foizen, a manager in the city Office of Emergency Management, that the alert was real: Amtrak Train 188 had come off the tracks as it rounded a turn at Frankford Junction at high speed, killing eight passengers and injuring more than 200.

She began to help deploy people and equipment to support police officers, firefighters, and emergency workers, who soon were heading to the scene in droves.

On Friday, Foizen and more than a dozen frontline responders provided the first authorized account of what they saw and did on Tuesday night. Speaking to reporters at City Hall, they described a vast, dusty, darkened landscape of shattered metal and injured, moaning passengers.

"Like a scene from a movie," Philadelphia Police Officer Timothy Coleman said. "It was chaotic, it was scary, people screaming for help."

The first call - officials aren't yet certain if it was from a civilian or emergency worker - came to dispatchers at 9:27 p.m. Then more calls poured in from passengers on the train.

"The people were frantic, but they were also calm," dispatch supervisor Ken Carey said. "They were able to say, 'I've been in an accident, but I don't know where I am.' "

Emergency officials "pinged" their cellphones to pinpoint the sources of the calls: On the curve of the tracks in Frankford.

Firefighters were dispatched one minute after the initial call. The first units, Ladder 10 and Battalion 10, based nearby, arrived on the scene at 9:31, officials said.

The careening train had taken down power lines. Police and firefighters weren't sure if the lines had electrified the multiple lanes of tracks.

They didn't know if the wreck was an accident or an attack. Or if it was the latter, whether a second bomb might be waiting.

"We don't think about Boston, 9/11, the Pentagon," said Highway Patrol Sgt. James Morace. "We turn on the [police car] lights and we go."

Power at the scene was quickly disconnected, and other train traffic was stopped. Local hospitals were asked about their number of available beds.

"Most of you saw that scene during daylight," East Detectives Capt. Mark Burgmann told reporters. "Can you imagine that scene at night?"

The New York Police Department called, offering to fly in investigators. That department handled the 2013 derailment of a Metro North train that killed four people. On Thursday, New York prosecutors announced they would not file criminal charges against the engineer, who fell asleep at the controls.

In Philadelphia, many among the first wave of 75 to 100 police officers and firefighters made their way to the scene through a hole in a fence. Some had arrived in street clothes, driving there from home.

They organized into groups to check each car, get the walking wounded headed toward triage points, evacuate the more seriously injured, and locate the dead.

That last, hard duty fell to Wyatt - a 4-year-old golden retriever named for Old West lawman Wyatt Earp. He was one of three dogs brought to the wreck to sniff out human remains.

"Our goal is to make sure everyone comes home," said Wyatt's handler, Canine Search Specialist Eric Darling of Pennsylvania Task Force 1, a government search team. "That's what drives us. It might be tragic, but it's closure."

It seemed as if every agency and group responded: SEPTA police; Amtrak police; Housing Authority police; the Red Cross; Salvation Army; and the Second Alarmers, the volunteer group that provides food to firefighters and police at emergency sites.

"There is no doubt the Philadelphia Fire Department, the Philadelphia Police Department, and all of our first responders saved a lot of lives," Mayor Nutter said Friday.

Foizen, the emergency management manager, worked that night at Webster School, where officials established a coordination center near the wreck site.

Survivors wandered in. Then came families searching for the missing, people waiting to learn if their loved one was injured or dead.

"We shared information as best we had it," Foizen said.

She's six months pregnant, and some of those family members talked to her about that, making conversation by asking how she felt and if she knew the gender of her child.

"Their strength was scary," she said. "Their loved ones were missing, and they still had hope."