A guy in a hat: A brave man in the ruins of Amtrak train 188

Reading through the awful details of Amtrak train 188's crash one story particularly made an impression, that of Assistant Conductor Thomas O'Brien. He was "a guy with a hat" who helped clear three cars of passengers in the wake of the crash. He describes his fear and the unlikely euphoria he felt upon finding himself alive and uninjured.

"I was like, 'oh, I' m like invincible,'" he told investigators during his interview for the NTSB review of the crash.

O'Brien cleared the car he was in of passengers, then went on to help rescue people in three more cars, continuing to lend a hand even after first responders had shown up.

I reached out to Amtrak to get a bit more information about him, how old he is, how long he's worked… the usual details, but it was too late in the day and, while we include some choice quotes from him in our story today, I didn't want to wait to tell his whole story. There were a lot of brave people at the scene of this tragedy, but O'Brien's account offers vivid doses of humor, heartbreak, and heroism… a deeply human account of a terrible night.

As much as possible I'll let O'Brien speak for himself. His words are great.

The train had been running late but by the time it arrived in Philadelphia it was nearly back on time, he said. O'Brien was new to the route and the trip marked his first time working with engineer Brandon Bostian. Nevertheless, as the train left Philadelphia he noticed something was wrong. He was walking through the seventh and last car on the train when the crash happened.

"Somewhere between Philly and Trenton everything was fine until it wasn't. You know what I mean? Like there wasn't like a, oh, man, this feels strange or this looks strange or something is wrong. It just -- we were moving along and then there was, like, two seconds of shake and then what felt like two really major impacts to me. I felt like we slammed the car ahead of us, and I actually -- I don't know what was really happening."

He described pulling seat checks at the time of the crash.

"And we hit and I went flying. And I hit the back of some chair. And as soon as I got up, I' m looking around and there' s immediately more blood than made sense for me to be able to see so fast. I just thought 'how are we all bleeding so much already?'

"And I' m looking at the walls and I' m looking at the floor and there's just blood and there's stuff everywhere. The seats are all either disconnected and off or rotated out of place.

"And now people are, like, yelling about being trapped because they're pinned with these, they're pinned with these seats. People are screaming that they think that the train's on fire. And it's not. It's just, it's like dust and stuff, stuff that -- all that negative pressure in the train just sucks, you know, everything up and we' re swimming in it now.

"And I had this stupid thought that I needed to, like -- because my hat got knocked off my head and I was like, you got to find that hat because they're going to want to see a guy that looks like he knows what he's doing and looks like he' s not ready to wet his pants and cry.

"So I found the hat. I put it on. All these rocks poured all over my face. And I was like, this was a bad idea. But -- and at the time I didn't feel hurt. I had the wind knocked out of me from that -- from the seat in my chest, but I was like, 'oh, I' m like invincible.'

"So it was time to get people out of here.

"And I look to the rear of the train, because that was sort of the direction I was heading, and I went that way. And the side door, which was my first choice of getting out, was jammed and broken, maybe nine, 10 inches wide. And then the bottom whole foot of it was buried in the ballast. So I was like, you have to be small to get out here and it's not going to work. People were already trying to cram out, and when they were, I was like, move to your left. When you get out, move to your left. Stay away from the rail. Stay away from the wires."

O'Brien then described radioing for help, though he wasn't sure who was receiving, and remembered hearing another conductor, Akida Henry, doing the same.

"People were squeezing out that little side door and I thought, all right, this is going to -- someone' s going to get hurt and this is going to take forever, people trying to get out this door. So I opened the bulkhead door in the back. I key that thing open and I pull the levers that lock it in place and push that out. And then finally that's a way that people can really start getting out. So the first two or so people get out and they act as, like, stairs for the other people that I' m pulling out. And then now that they see that I'm a guy with a hat and I'm supposed to know what I' m doing, they're pointing me in the direction of the people who can' t walk out. Because a lot of people at those two rear cars were banged up, but were walking. Some of them were not, and so they would say go here or go there, and so I'm going to these different people. And I remember the first woman that I grabbed was, like -- I don't know what happened to her, but I just, I couldn't see her eyes anymore. There was just all blood and she's screaming about she can't see. So I pick her up and and I get her and I'm -- I sort of shoulder her out and we get her to the rear of the car and they grab her.

"And I went back in and I' m continuing to try to clear this car. I'm getting people's feet unstuck from chairs and I'm making my way into the sixth car. In the sixth car there's a handful of people who need specific help getting themselves out of this train. So I'm getting them up and I'm either taking them out or there are other people.

"There was a guy who was an off-duty police officer back there, and he started lending a hand too. He was grabbing people and he was like -- he had a flashlight. It could've been mine. Mine went flying somewhere. I have no idea. But he had a light and he was, like, lighting the way for people and he was ready to help grab other people off.

"After I cleared that car, I couldn't get to the next one. It was either way separated from us or just the entrance was blocked off, but I just couldn't budge those doors. I was trying to crowbar the side doors open and they weren't going anywhere. Somebody at some point was popping emergency windows open. I didn't do that, but there were people coming out the windows.

"Eventually, when I felt like I did everything that I could do in those two cars, I grabbed the box of the glow sticks and then I went out there and I snapped them and, like, sat them with the people who were, like, not moving and not walking. Because there were like -- it was a handful of people sitting off the right-of-way and just kind of in the dirt. But they were in total darkness and I just thought if they pass out, we're not going to know where they are. We're never going to be able to find them. I mean, that's stupid now because of course everybody had flashlights, but I just -- in my head I was like, you need to mark these people so they can be seen.

"And so I did that and then I walked up to the wreck of the café car and I went in there because it seemed like there were a lot of people in there. But at that point first responders were already showing up. So they showed up after I had finished those last two cars and were in that café, I think sawing at the table or something, trying to get somebody out, because I think somebody was pinned in there. And that seemed like something that I couldn't do anything about. You know, it just seemed like there are tools for that job and I don't have them.

"So I turn around and head back and just start trying to, like, find injured passengers and see if there's -- if there are things that I can do. One of the first responders stops me and asks if I have any kind of idea of how many people are on, and I' m like, 'well, yeah, I have, like, an exact idea.'

"And I took out my device and it said '236,' or whatever it said, and so I was like, 'Well, there' s 236 and there' s five crew members on.'

"And he said 'okay.'

"And he asked if I was okay to walk and if I felt okay and I said 'yeah.' And so he said, 'All right, then I need you to come 17 with me. We're going to go and ask you a bunch of questions.'

"And then he took me to the middle of the street and disappeared and didn't ask me any questions.

"And ultimately, a guy showed up and gave me, like, a triage tag number. And they waited until they had, I think, three or four of us tagged and then they put us in the back of one of these police wagons. And it was me, a guy on a stretcher who was really bloody and beat up, and then two other ladies, and brought us to Hahnemann or -- I' m not sure if I' m pronouncing that correctly, but it was a hospital, a university hospital here in Philly.

"And, you know, I got checked in. I got x-rayed and CAT scanned and got some pain medicine and discharged at five in the morning, the next morning. That might be it."