WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. — A loud bang, sudden darkness, and the acrid smell of electrical smoke.
That’s how Republican lawmakers describe the train accident they survived on Wednesday, which killed a rider in a dump truck that was stuck on the tracks outside of Charlottesville, Va.
Republicans arrived for their annual retreat at the Greenbrier Resort via bus after their crippled train backtracked to the Charlottesville station.
A group of Republican lawmakers, many of them doctors, described their actions moments after the train crash.
Rep. Michael Burgess, a surgeon from Texas, jumped off the train as quickly as he could to try to tend to the three passengers of the decimated truck, “after realizing it was not an intentional act and that there was very likely people injured outside.”
So did Rep. Phil Roe, an obstetrician and gynecologist from Tennessee.
Roe arriving at the truck, found one passenger had died, likely on impact. But he tried to resuscitate him. Roe said he wanted the man’s family to know the man likely didn’t suffer.
The House chaplain, Fr. Patrick J. Conroy, who was also on the train, administered last rites.
He was joined at the scene by Sen. Bill Cassidy, a gastroenterologist who represents Louisiana.
Cassidy worried about the fluid leaking out of the truck igniting in flames.
“We didn’t know whether there was brake or diesel fluid,” Cassidy recalled. “We were all looking at this, knowing we could not move the bodies, hoping that a match did not go off.”
Other lawmakers with medical backgrounds rushed off the train to help.
Rep. Larry Bucshon, of Indiana, is a heart surgeon and worked on resuscitating the injured, but his wife, Kathryn, an anesthesiologist, played a key role establishing an airway on the most injured survivor.
“It’s hard to intubate somebody when they are not sedated, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, of Ohio, who is also a physician and was at the scene, said.
Some of the lawmakers on the scene of the train accident were also present on the Alexandria baseball field last summer when a man opened fire, grievously injuring House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and hurting several others.
Wenstrup was on the field that day and played a key role in stabilizing Scalise, who is still recovering.
Wenstrup was back in action using his medical skills Wednesday.
“Brad was cutting away the jackets so they could attach lifesaving equipment,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who helped at the crash site Wednesday and was also on the scene of the shooting. “It reminded me of doing the same thing. Brad cutting away the [baseball] uniform. I thought after that day, I never wanted to experience that again. But it came again, all too soon.”
