When Amtrak Train No. 188 derailed Tuesday night, Seyward Darby, Trinity ’07, was sitting in the third car, working on an article as she traveled from Washington to New York.
Eight were killed and more than 200 injured in the wreck, which occurred at 9:30 p.m. outside of Philadelphia, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Darby, the editor of the 101st volume of The Chronicle and currently an editor at Foreign Policy, says the trip is one she takes all the time—commuting regularly from her office in Washington to her home in Brooklyn, N.Y.
She realized something was wrong as the train sped into a curve north of Philadelphia—going more than 100 miles per hour, or twice the legal speed limit.
“We started to pull hard the wrong way, which happens sometimes,” she said. “I was waiting for the train to correct itself, but it never did.”
Darby said she remembered looking at her neighbor and bracing herself as hard as she could when a jolt indicated the train was derailing. She explained that after recent knee surgery and a lengthy recovery, her first instinct was to worry about her leg.
But as a “metallic dirt taste” began to fill the air, she said she stopped thinking about her knee and started asking herself, “Am I going to die?”
When the car came to a halt on its side, she checked to make sure all her limbs were working then hoisted herself onto a luggage rack. She exited the top of the car through a window, which a fellow passenger had split open.
“I didn’t try to take anything with me—I left the train in the dress I was wearing and with one shoe,” Darby said.
Standing in a field by the wreck, she borrowed a phone and called her fiancé—who she will marry in just three weeks—to tell him she was safe.
She was then taken in a squad car to Temple University Hospital and treated for severely bruised or possibly broken ribs and is currently recovering in a Philadelphia hotel.
Darby said that although it is too soon to tell whether the error was mechanical, human or a combination of both, someone will have to take responsibility for the devastating accident.
“It’s such an awful tragedy, and there is so much sadness,” she said. “My fiancé and I keep looking at each other—we’re so grateful and so lucky.”
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