A passenger in the deadly, 2015 Amtrak crash testified on Tuesday the train was “going way too fast” when she was knocked unconscious — and she woke up in the woods with other passengers on top of her.
Blair Berman, who was the in the first car of the Washington-to-New York train, said at engineer Brandon Bostian’s pre-trail hearing that she noticed the train speeding and took her earbud out to hear her fellow passengers screaming.
“I heard screaming from the front of the car and then a big bang and then I blacked out and woke up in the woods,” Berman said, according to the Associated Press.
When she woke up, other passengers who had also gone flying were on top of her.
The train had crashed while going 106 mph into a 50 mph curve in Philadelphia. The impact sent the train tumbling off the tracks, killing eight and injuring 200.
Bostian, 34, who lived in Queens at the time of the crash, is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment for the May 2015 crash.
Berman, who had several broken bones, also told the court that she saw Bostian after the crash, and he wouldn’t let her use his phone despite the fact that she was barefoot and couldn’t walk. He also didn’t identify himself as the train operator or even as an Amtrak employee. After Berman screamed at him, he left her use the phone to call her father.
Philly cop Michael Maresca also testified on Tuesday, the AP reported. He described how he found bodies and severed limbs strewn on the tracks and in the woods.
The front car of the train, which Berman had been riding in was “twisted like a tin can.”
Emergency personnel work the scene of a deadly train wreck in Philadelphia in 2015.APA judge will determine whether to move forward with the case.
Bostian’s lawyers asked on Monday for the charges to be dropped. They claim the late filing of the charges, which were lodged in May just before the statute of limitations was up, violated his right to due process.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded last year that Bostian was to blame after he got distracted by radio chatter about a nearby commuter train being struck with a rock.
Instead of slowing down, the engineer accelerated as he approached the curve and quickly lost control.
Amtrak has agreed to pay out $265 million to the crash victims and their families.
