This doesn't fit the mold of our typical posts, but reading this story about what a 15-year-old Boy Scout and his fellow scouts did following the train crash in Missouri on Monday moved us. Here are some excerpts:
Eli and 14 other Boy Scouts had spent 10 days exploring the backcountry of New Mexico, mostly by backpacking through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and were on their way home to Appleton, Wis., said Dan Skrypczak, Eli’s father and the scoutmaster of Appleton Troop 73. [snip]
At 12:43 p.m., “a giant jolt” awakened Eli, who was in his seat. There was twisting metal and loud creaking. He smelled diesel. Then, his train car overturned onto its side, causing Eli to fall onto fellow Scouts who had been sitting across the aisle on the side of the train that had become the new floor. [snip]
The Amtrak train had hit the dump truck near Mendon, derailing two locomotives and nearly every train car, The Post reported. Heading from Los Angeles to Chicago along Amtrak’s Southwest Chief line, the train was carrying 275 passengers and 12 crew members, according to Amtrak. [snip]
The collision caused some of the Scouts from Wisconsin to lose their phones, AirPods and even their shoes, Skrypczak said. Eli and the others collected their wits, made sure they were all accounted for and started helping people.
“The adrenaline kicked in, and something took over and I knew what to do,” Eli told WITI. “It was unreal. It still doesn’t seem real to me.”
First, the Scouts secured passengers who seemed like they might have spinal cord injuries, his father told The Post. Then, they started popping out the train car’s emergency windows. When some got stuck, the Scouts took off their shirts for protection and broke the glass. They evacuated everyone they could.
They were “getting people out of windows and carrying them down,” Eli told the Milwaukee-based TV station. “I had to carry a couple kids in my arms, two at a time.”
After that, Eli ran to the front of the train to see if anyone was injured, his father told The Post. He learned the train had hit a vehicle when he saw wheels or an axle near the tracks. Then, in a ditch, he spotted a man who turned out to be the driver of the dump truck the train had just hit, whom authorities have not identified.
He was hurt — badly. He was bleeding and, although he was breathing, the man was gurgling. Eli gave him some water and tried to stop the bleeding. He told the driver that help was on the way. He held his hand. Soon, a local farmer joined Eli as they tended to the dying man.
“They were trying to comfort him,” Skrypczak said.
Eli and the farmer kept up their efforts until emergency crews arrived, something that probably took minutes but “seemed like a lifetime,” Skrypczak said. After initially joining the rescue efforts, the first responders told Eli and the farmer it was time to “call it” and “attend to the living.”
“And that’s what Eli and the boys did,” Skrypczak said.
Eli jumped into the fray. Since the crash, Skrypczak said, he’s been getting messages from others at the scene who remembered Eli as the kid pinballing between firetrucks and the crash site to resupply paramedics. Based on what others have told him, Skrypczak estimated his son made 100 trips. [snip]
But Eli was just one of the Scouts helping, he added. Some performed first aid on their own scoutmasters who had been seriously injured. Others hauled passengers on backboards from the crash site to ambulances. When paramedics stopped them from doing that for the more seriously injured patients, the Scouts stripped out parts of the train car that might block rescue workers from getting people out of the wreckage.
It's hard to imagine how fraught and traumatic the situation was for the passengers on that train. That the youngest among them had the presence, courage and selflessness to do what they did is an honor that should be associated with them for the rest of their lives.
(Photo: Eli and his father Dan/ Dan Skrypczak, via the Washington Post)
