CLARENDON, Texas — Officials said that one of the three men who survived a fiery head-on collision between two trains Tuesday morning almost certainly owes his life to the heroism of bystanders and rescue crews who braved mounting flames to pull the man from beneath an overturned coal car, the Amarillo Globe-News reports.
“There’s no doubt in my mind the death toll would have gone up by one if it weren’t for these people,” said Department of Public Safety spokesman trooper Wayne Beighle. “There was fire everywhere and they went in there to dig that man out.”
Bruce Patterson, 57, was the conductor of the coal train that collided with a general freight train Tuesday morning on the single-track railway just west of Clarendon.
During the collision, Patterson got his leg trapped under one of the coal cars, which was resting on a locomotive that was spouting fire from spilling diesel fuel.
Texas Department of Transportation workman Mike Ritchie was installing a road sign about a mile away when the accident happened, and he rushed to the scene.
“There were three or four guys there trying to get him out,” Ritchie said. “I assumed they were truckers, because there were several trucks stopped on the highway.”
Ritchie said he and his partner broke out shovels they were carrying in their truck to help in the rescue, and then called in the accident.
The bystanders quickly were replaced by professional rescuers when firefighters and Emergency Medical Service personnel arrived on scene.
Belinda Montana, director of operations for Clarendon EMS, was one of the rescue workers helping to free Patterson. Montana said she and her fellow rescuers were aware of the danger from the encroaching flames, but they had a duty to do.
“We were just focused on getting him out,” Montana said. “I was concerned for the safety of my crew, but I wasn’t worried about the danger to myself. We had to save him.”
Montana said Patterson was conscious and talking to them as they tried to pull him out from beneath the coal car. Patterson’s leg was caught underneath the car, so the rescuers had to dig the dirt out from around the leg to free him.
The entire rescue operation took about 20 minutes, with the flames threatening the entire time.
Clarendon Fire Chief Delbert Robertson said his fire crews focused on keeping the flames back from the rescuers and preventing the fire from spreading to the diesel fuel rapidly saturating the ground around them.
Once Patterson was freed, he was flown by Lifestar to Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo, where he was listed in stable condition Tuesday.
Montana and the other rescuers played down the risk they took to save Patterson from the fire, but Beighle was not nearly so reserved.
“I just can’t say enough about what they did,” Beighle said. “To risk their own lives like that to save another man, that’s something truly special.”