Ellijay man recalls carnage of D.C. train crash

When Mark Zimmerman was violently flung to the floor of the Metro car he was riding Monday in Washington, D.C., his first thought was that he was being attacked from behind with a baseball bat.

“I expected to stand up and see someone trying to mug me,” said Zimmerman, of Ellijay.

But it wasn’t a bat, or a mugger — it was the impact of another train that had crashed into his own, jack-knifing and resting atop his car. His seat had folded over from the impact, but that was nothing compared to the carnage he was about to see.

A man, perhaps another passenger, ran in from another car and shouted they needed to get the doors open. That’s when they could see the wreckage on top of their car, bodies that had been flung from above and the injured pleading for help.

“I’ll never forget” the sounds and images, Zimmerman said.

Federal investigators are working to determine the exact cause for Monday’s crash that killed nine and injured more than 70. At the time of the collision, the train was operated by a computerized system that should have prevented the tragedy on the red line. Officials say the emergency brake control was pushed down, indicating the operator attempted to stop the train.

Zimmerman, a 42-year-old computer programmer, was in Washington on business. At the time of the crash, he was sitting in his parked Metro train on his way home, waiting for a disabled train ahead of him to be cleared. He was texting a friend about the delay, deciding whether to get off the Metro in favor of another route back to Frederick, Md.

“We were sitting there, stopped and waiting. And all of a sudden — Bam!” he recalled.

Despite the chaos, no one screamed or seemed to panic, he said.

The man, whose name Zimmerman never knew, directed him and others to rush to other cars to find spare cloths, T-shirts and clothing items, things they could use as bandages. Then, Zimmerman stayed with a group of frightened and injured passengers near the tracks. A woman and daughter. A couple. A man who kept saying his ear was torn off, despite Zimmerman’s assurances it wasn’t.

Not knowing what to do, Zimmerman comforted the man by placing his head on a seat cushion until help arrived.

Zimmerman and others then pried open another set of doors of the train, though it was covered in blood from the wounded above them. Somehow in the crash, the floor and wheels of the upper car had largely been torn off, though the roof of his car was intact.

Amazingly, Zimmerman said, no one in his car was seriously hurt, though he was picking shards of glass from his hair and body. When emergency workers arrived, Zimmerman initially declined medical attention, saying others needed help more than he did.

He was later treated at a hospital and released the same day. Despite being seated in the back car and taking the brunt of the impact, he survived with little more than bruising and soreness, save for severe headaches that continue to plague him.

“I think I’m really lucky to be alive,” he said. “I’m still in a lot of pain, but for me, this is going to go away. For so many, it won’t.”

What haunts Zimmerman is that he couldn’t help others more, he said.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have the skills to know what to do,” he said.

He still doesn’t know most of the people with whom he shared Monday’s frightening wreck, but he called the mother of the man he comforted after the crash. She told Zimmerman her son remains in the hospital and doctors believe he is paralyzed.

Zimmerman hopes to return to Georgia this weekend to be reunited with friends and family. He’s not sure whether he wants to return to his job in Washington, or to ride the Metro ever again.

“I think up here they have this whole concept that the Metro is safe,” Zimmerman said. “That’s why I have such a tough time accepting that it happened.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this article.