A man aboard the first car of the Brightline train that crashed into a fire truck on Saturday in Delray Beach, leaving 15 injured, said he remembers the screaming and blood after the impact.
The Saturday crash in downtown Delray Beach left three firefighters and a dozen Brightline passengers hospitalized.
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WATCH HEREThe fire truck apparently drove around rail crossing arms and into the path of a high-speed passenger train after waiting for another train to pass.
BRIGHTLINE VS. FIRE TRUCK
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The shocking crash was caught on camera and left the fire truck severely damaged and on its side, and the front of the train smashed in.
Randy Fitzgerald said he was heading to Palm Beach that morning, when the crash launched him onto the table in front of him.
He said it was terrifying.
"My arms are a little bit sore from slamming into the table in front of me on the impact with the fire truck at high speed," he told NBC6 exclusively. "The scene just keeps replaying in my mind of just slamming in, the sound, glass shattering, people screaming around me, seeing the man next to me bleeding. It was traumatic and keeps replaying in my mind."
Video Fitzgerald took shows the passengers trying to figure out what happened. Shattered windows and glass are visible on the floor surrounding passengers.
"It became total chaos," Fitzgerald said. "I didn't know what was happening. I'm in the front car of a high-speed train that I thought was derailed. I see debris flying out the window, glasses shattering, people are screaming, things are falling from the ceiling."
He added that the passenger next to him was bleeding and many of the people in the front car with him were taken to the hospital.
"He had a gnarly gash on his arm. He was bleeding. He needed medical attention. Around me there was lots of shattered glass," Fitzgerald said. "We all had to be evacuated immediately out of that front car because of all of the glass shards and the things that had fallen, the train debris inside the car."
Then, Fitzgerald said he and others were moved by authorities to wait for another train to evacuate them. It took about two and a half hours.
"It was hard. And for the rest of the day even, I just kept replaying it in my mind," he said. "I am grateful to God that I did not have more serious injuries, that no one died. Thank goodness."
Fitzgerald said at first, he thought they had hit a car--again.
"This is the third crash I've been in on Brightline this year, but this was by far the worst," he said.
Brightline posted video to X that showed the train on its route. The video stops as it slams into the fire truck crossing the tracks while the gates are down.
Still, he says: "I love Brightline. I take Brightline like four or five times a month, but I think this is a community effort that we all have to be more serious about making sure that we can have high-speed rail, but we have to be safe about it. I think that it's important to share our stories when these kinds of things happen because these are avoidable... What I went through, what the other people on the train went through, it doesn't need to happen, and it shouldn't happen."
