When a train derailed in Clinton County, witnesses ran to help, prepared for the worst
Three Clinton County residents were working at a vehicle repair shop near the railroad tracks that run along Illinois 161 on Monday morning when the lights in the shop went out, the floor shook and the sound of a passing train was louder than it had ever been before.
A Norfolk Southern cargo train had derailed close by. No one was hurt in the accident, but the shop employees didn’t know that.
Shop volunteer Tim Sweet, of New Baden, recalled thinking about the locomotive workers as he and the rest of the staff at Barnyard Cycles reacted to the commotion. “What if those guys are trapped?” he thought. Sweet suggested they go see if anyone was hurt while they waited for police and fire personnel to arrive.
Shop owner Alex Heckenkemper, of Breese, was likely the first person to alert authorities to the derailment by calling 911. His cell phone recorded the call at 11:22 a.m., which is when first-responders say they were dispatched.
Sweet said he had EMT training from his time in the Air Force and thought he could tell Heckenkemper and mechanic Troy Henard, of Breese, what to do if anyone needed help at the scene.
“I can show these guys how to initiate CPR and how to tie a tourniquet,” he said. “We just reacted.”
They recounted their experience in an interview Tuesday.
Sweet said it looked like a bomb went off at the tracks. Some rails were 6 or 7 feet in the air, according to Henard.
Of the 131 cars in the train, 26 derailed, according to a statement from the Clin-Clair Fire Department. Albers Police Chief Brian L. Vielweber said the derailed cars were in the middle of the train. He spoke to reporters from the scene Monday.
Sweet said he and the other shop employees looked for placards that would indicate the train cars were carrying hazardous material, but they didn’t see any.
Two of the train cars were carrying a flammable liquid, according to the Clin-Clair Fire Department. The department stated that some of the liquid leaked out of one of the cars because of the derailment, and the leak was contained Monday.
Sweet said the shop employees were concerned that train workers could be stuck if the locomotive landed on its side, but it didn’t.
They used an off-road vehicle to get close to the tracks. When they reached the overturned train cars in the midsection, they called out for anyone who may have needed help.
Their attempt to locate and aid any injured train workers was captured in a video Sweet shot at the scene. He said he wanted to have it in case they saw someone in the rubble but couldn’t get there themselves and needed to show EMS personnel where to go.
“We didn’t really think about it until we got back. It could have been so much worse,” Sweet said.
Sweet later uploaded the video to his Facebook profile, giving the public a close look at the damage. As of Tuesday night, it had 67,000 views. He also shared the video with the Belleville News-Democrat.
“Wow. Never seen a pile up like that,” one commenter wrote on Sweet’s profile.
Vielweber said clean-up would take several days and law enforcement agencies would work with Norfolk Southern railroad police to determine the cause of the derailment.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 6:37 AM.
