Survivors of Deadly Train Crash Recall Incident: “I Thought I Wasn’t Going to Make it”

CAYCE, SC (WOLO)- More than 100 people were injured during a fatal train crash on Sunday.

Some of the victims were released from the hospital Sunday evening after being treated at local hospitals. Some of the passengers who survived the crash spoke with ABC about what they experienced during the crash.

“I was thrown out of the chair and this (points to head) was hurting, I couldn’t get up, someone helped me get up,” passenger Gloria Johnson said. “My husband was thrown down the aisle, so he was stretched down on aisle. When train started swerving, I knew something was going on. Someone said they had derailed, says she didn’t know it had collided with freight train until later. First thought was I wasn’t going to make it, this was the end for me.”

“We remember being thrown out of our seats onto the floor, with a lot of metal coming down around us, we remember the lights going off, smell of smoke and just being banged around,” passenger Matthew Cheeseman said.

The impact was bad,” passenger George Kephart said. “It ripped my chair off the floor. The lady next to me was an elderly woman. She was all tangled up in the chair in front of her.”