MONDAY, JUNE 21, 2009-P.M.
Jody Wickett, RN, BSN, finished her third day of 12-hour shifts on the telemetry cardiac unit at Washington Hospital Center
in Washington, D.C., and was riding the Metro commuter train home when someone snatched her purse. "I was not really paying
attention and my purse was taken out of my backpack that I was wearing," she remembers.
TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2009-A.M.
Like anyone in her situation, Wickett spent the morning canceling credit cards and notifying banks. Also, she had to replace
her driver's license even though she decided to leave behind her vehicle and rely on public transportation when she agreed
to this assignment in the nation's capital, arranged by Nursefinders, a staffing company based in Boca Raton, Florida. "I
usually have my car with me, but here I learned how to use the city's train system, and it's extensive. When I first arrived
in May, I ended up in the wrong location a few times," says the nurse, who has been accepting mobile contracts off and on
for six years, recently on a full-time basis. Wickett opted to take a train to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in the northern suburb of Glenmont, Maryland. "Turns
out the DMV was located right off the Metro station, so I thought that would make things easy," she says.
TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2009-P.M.
With everything checked off her to-do list for the day, Wickett caught a late-afternoon train back into the city. She was
looking forward to spending the evening with her boyfriend. Given what had happened the night before, the day had gone fairly
smoothly. That all changed in a matter of seconds when the train on which Wickett was traveling crashed into the back of another
commuter train.
"I was texting with my boyfriend when I felt a bump, then it felt like I hit a concrete wall," she recalls. "I did not even
hear anything; it just happened instantaneously. I flew backward over seats and hit my head and back, losing consciousness.
After that, I must have fallen forward, because when I awoke, I was lying a couple of seats ahead from where I had been sitting.
"The train car was completely off the track and tilted to the side," she continues. "I could see smoke but did not recognize
where we were because the windows had shattered. The other passengers and I managed to open the doors and could see that the
train car in front of us was completely upended. Next, we made sure everyone was OK. Most people riding in my car had only
minor injuries, but we realized there were others on the tracks who were hurt. Some of us decided to get out and jump over
the tracks, and I made my way up to the other car.
"That car's walls and floor were peeled away, and all that was left were the seats piled up in the back like an accordion,"
she says. "That's where people were trapped, while others
had been ejected out the side of the train. I called out to see if there were any medical professionals around. I found one
passenger who was a nursing assistant and a gentleman who obviously had some kind of medical training.
"We tried to triage people; of course, there were some who had passed away from the impact," she continues. "Some of the injured
were so badly lacerated that their limbs were just hanging or weren't there at all. There was a lot of bleeding and I made
tourniquets with whatever I could find."
At some point, Wickett made her way to the critically injured conductor. "She was stuck between two metal pieces. A fellow
passenger who happened to be a priest and I tried to comfort her and talked with her as long as she could speak, but as you
know, she did not make it. I believe she probably bled out when rescuers removed the metal because her injuries were just
so extensive," Wickett says.
MINUTES LATER
Although time seemed to crawl by as she attended to passengers, within minutes teams of first responders arrived. "I had done
all that I could do," Wickett admits. That's when the reality of her own condition began to set in. "I probably had been running
off adrenaline," she confesses.
The heat, fumes, and a head injury finally got the best of Wickett, who became ill at the site. But because so many others
suffered more serious injuries, she had to wait a while before being transported to a hospital. "There was nothing I could
do but watch the EMTs and firefighters before they escorted me out," she says. "I have been at accident scenes before, but
this was overwhelming."
The crash killed nine people and injured 80.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE, 2009
Wickett spent the night in the hospital where she received treatment for lacerations, a concussion, a sprained ankle, and
hip and back pain, which she still experiences to some degree.
