NEW: I shot this video on board the #Amtrak501 in the 6 o clock hour this morning. We got off after shooting the video. This specific car on the train derailed minutes after we shot this video. pic.twitter.com/3g25PvMAMe
— Alex Rozier (@AlexRozierK5) December 18, 2017
Video shot inside one of the Amtrak train cars that derailed in Washington state on Monday shows passengers moments before the the wreck that killed three and injured dozens.
Alex Rozier, a reporter for KING 5, captured the footage while doing a story about the No. 501 train’s maiden high-speed run from Seattle to Portland.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Four passengers can be seen in the background of Rozier’s clip, which he says was taken 10 minutes before the crash occurred.
“I shot this video on board the #Amtrak501 in the 6 o clock hour this morning. We got off after shooting the video. This specific car on the train derailed minutes after we shot this video,” Rozier said in a tweet, along with the clip.
In another tweet, Rozier said: “We boarded the train at 6 AM. In the 7 o clock hour that same train derailed. We got off 10 minutes before the crash.”
Rozier also tweeted photos of an elderly passenger he interviewed on the train who broke his back during the crash. Rozier also interviewed him in the hospital later in the day, writing on Twitter, “He has a broken back, but he will be ok. I am so thankful to hear he’s alive.”
The high-speed train was traveling 50 mph over its limit, officials said, when it crashed near Tacoma, Washington on Monday morning. The crash left several train cars dangling from the overpass onto a busy highway, completely stopping traffic below.
Daniel Konzelman, a highway commuter who came across the wreck on the road, said he helped save victims inside the train cars after the crash.
Konzelman says he climbed through the broken window of one train car and inside found a man with a neck and back injury.
“A woman who was by him had head trauma and she was sort of unstable,” Konzelman continues. “I couldn’t get them out of the train without a ladder or a gurney so I stayed with them until I was able to get somebody else to just come be with them and make sure they were safe.”
Konzelman says he jumped below the overpass where another train car dangled by a wooded area. He says another man came to help and inside another car they found an injured train attendant.
“He had been thrown on impact into a table and then into the area between the [cars] and hit his head,” Konzelman, an accountant, tells PEOPLE. “I think he broke his back. He was sort of pinned and couldn’t move.”
When rescue teams arrived at the scene, Konzelman and a police officer made their way through the rest of the train and found “the most seriously damaged train car” where he says three people were pinned underneath.
Two of the three people killed in the derailment have been identified as friends, James Hamre and Zack Willhoite. Hamre and Willhoite both volunteered at All Aboard Washington, a rail advocacy group.