Rep. Zeldin among GOP lawmakers on train that hit truck, killing driver

First, Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island felt a violent jolt in the jarring moment after an Amtrak train with Republican Congress members aboard crashed into a garbage truck Wednesday in rural Virginia.

It was what he didn’t hear next that surprised him.

Amid the confusion — passengers jerking to attention, Zeldin feeling his upper body and neck yanked “in a whiplash type motion” — no one he saw lost their cool, he said.

“Everyone was calm — it was amazing . . . I didn’t hear any panic at all though it was a massive collision,” Zeldin said in a telephone interview from the crash site Wednesday afternoon in Crozet, Virginia.

The train’s impact killed the driver of the garbage truck and seriously injured two passengers in the vehicle, authorities said. Some of those on the train reported bumps, bruises and sore joints.

Amtrak said two crew members and three passengers on the train were taken to a hospital with minor injuries.

Zeldin and his Republican colleagues had boarded the train earlier Wednesday morning for a trip south to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The three-day issues retreat is expected to include appearances by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Seated about four cars from the front of the train, Zeldin said he had his laptop open and was doing some work when he felt the force of the crash and then the train eventually slow to a stop. Nothing outside his window gave him a clue to what caused the crash, Zeldin said, but he instantly knew it was serious.

“It was clear there was something very wrong at the first moment of impact,” he said. “If I had to compare it to anything, it felt like getting into a car crash. My body reacted as you would imagine. Your upper body, your neck makes a whiplash-type motion.”

Zeldin said that after the collision “the biggest factor seemed to be the ability of the train to stop and not derail.”

Then word spread quickly among passengers that the train had hit the truck.

Many of the House and Senate members had brought their children for the trip, Zeldin said.

“Eight to 10” children were in Zeldin’s car, he said, with ages ranging from about 4 to 12. Zeldin heard no crying or screaming.

“Everyone kind of stayed in their seats and allowed emergency responders to do what they do but there were people standing around the injured until the emergency personnel arrived,” Zeldin said.

Almost immediately after the crash, security personnel descended on the scene about 125 miles southwest of Washington D.C., Zeldin said, and they created a secure perimeter.

“One of the first things that happened was the Capitol Police responded and it seemed a helicopter was flying over us within about 20 seconds,” Zeldin said.

With AP