A local reporter in Washington state got off the Amtrak train that derailed on Monday just minutes before hurtled off an overpass and killed three people.
Alex Rozier, a reporter for local NBC affiliate KING 5 News, was in the car that derailed in DuPont, Washington, capturing footage of the high-speed train on its inaugural trip on Monday morning.
He and his video team had to cover another story, so they got off the train in Tacoma, ten minutes before the 80mph crash that killed at least three people and sent more than 100 to the hospital.
Alex Rozier, a reporter for local NBC affiliate KING 5 News, was capturing footage on the high-speed train just minutes before it derailed in DuPont, Washington, on Monday morning
Rescue personnel and equipment are seen at the scene where an Amtrak passenger train derailed on a bridge over interstate highway I-5 in DuPont, Washington
NEW: I shot this video on board the #Amtrak501 in the 6 o clock hour this morning. We got off after shooting the video. This specific car on the train derailed minutes after we shot this video. pic.twitter.com/3g25PvMAMe
— Alex Rozier (@AlexRozierK5) December 18, 2017
‘I shot this video on board the #Amtrak501 in the 6 o clock hour this morning,’ Alex Rozier said on Twitter. ‘We got off after shooting the video. This specific car on the train derailed minutes after we shot this video.’
‘In the 7 o clock hour that same train derailed,’ Rozier continued. ‘We got off 10 minutes before the crash.’
In the video he and his crew filmed on the train, Rozier pans to his colleague Jim, a photographer, and asks, ‘What do you think?’ Jim responds: ‘Smooth ride.’
KING 5 News reporter Elisa Hahn tweeted that crews ‘often get pulled from one story to go to the next breaker’.
‘This time it may have saved @AlexRozierK5 and @King5unit9’s lives,’ she added.
Rozier said there were many people on the train for its first trip, including rail enthusiasts. Passengers were given commemorative lanyards for the journey.
He started the journey from Seattle at 6am, as the train was supposed to make its way to Portland in three-and-a-half hours.
The train was travelling at 81 mph a quarter of a mile before it reached curve with a 30 mph speed limit and derailed near Tacoma on Monday, killing three and injuring dozens of others
Lakewood Mayor Don Anderson warned in early December that the Department of Transportation needed to add more safety measures before launching the high-speed trains
‘Once we arrived in Tacoma, Washington we exited the train to go cover another story. Minutes after we got off I got a phone call from my Executive Producer,’ he told KING 5.
Rozier added: ‘She told me the train had just derailed. Multiple people are dead. Dozens are injured.
‘I will be ok, but I will tell you this…..when I go home for Christmas in a few days I’ll hug my family a little tighter because I need it.
‘Life can change so fast. This is very hard. My heart remains with those who weren’t as lucky as me. I know they were wonderful people.’
The cause of Monday’s accident has yet to be determined, and it could take months for investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board to reach a conclusion.
But website that maps location and speed using data from Amtrak’s train tracker app showed the train was going 81.1 mph about a quarter of a mile from the point where it derailed, where the speed limit is significantly lower.
A track chart prepared by the Washington State Department of Transportation shows the maximum speed drops from 79 mph to 30 mph for passenger trains just before the tracks curve to cross Interstate 5, which is where the train went off the tracks.
The Amtrak train making the first-ever run along a faster new route hurtled off the overpass (pictured) Monday near Tacoma and spilled some of its cars onto the highway below, killing some people, authorities said
The cause of Monday’s accident has yet to be determined, and it could take months for investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board to reach a conclusion
Bella Dinh-Zarr, an National Transportation Safety Board member, said at a Monday night news conference that information from the event data recorder in the rear locomotive provided information about the train’s speed.
Dinh-Zarr said it’s not yet known what caused the train to derail and that ‘it’s too early to tell’ why it was going so fast.
After the crash, the injured called out as rescuers – including people who had been in cars on their morning freeway commute – rushed to help.
The new service is supposed to make the journey between Portland and Seattle in 3 hours and 20 minutes, about 10 minutes faster than previous services.
Part of the reason why the new route is faster is because it diverges from the main line on a 14-mile bypass between DuPont and Tacoma.
The new track is a straighter line so the train can go faster, while the old track was windy and made the journey slower.
The bypass already existed but had the tracks needed to be updated for high-speed trains, which heat up the metal on the tracks more significantly
Monday’s inaugural trip was the culmination of the $181million project, that also included construction of a new train station at Tacoma.