June 22, 2009 - 11:42pm
WASHINGTON - A Metro train smashed into the back of another at the height of the Monday evening rush hour, killing at least nine people and injuring scores of others as cars from the trailing train jackknifed into the air and fell atop the first.
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Deborah Foster, Hagerstown
Foster was sitting in the third car from the front when her train struck the back of the train in front of it. She pushed the train’s intercom, but there was no response. Other passengers pulled the doors open, and she joined them in peering down the tracks.
“I saw the first car of our train straight up in the air,” she said.
Foster said she waited about 20 minutes before help arrived. She was not injured, but others were. As she walked past the train, she could see people bloody from the face down. “There were a lot of foot injuries, too,” Foster added.
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Garrett Dorsey, Northwest D.C.
Dorsey said he was on the train that had been at a standstill for about 10 minutes before it was hit by another train. He said everyone in his car fell out of their seats after the impact. Seats that were under a transformer were blown out of their original positions, he said.
Dorsey said someone tried to use the emergency exit, but only one door opened. No one exited his car until rescue officials came, he said, because they were concerned that the tracks still might have electricity running through them. When he got out of the train, he took a picture of the point of impact of the two trains, with one car on top of another.
“It was like a blanket that someone tried to put on the other car.”