![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP_17352748413278.jpg.jpg\")
\u201cI saw Lt. McCoy scale up the back of the semi-trailer like Spider-Man so I thought I\u2019ll get up the same way,\u201d Livingston said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both men walked along the top of the level car to reach the end of the hanging car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s where they found a woman struggling to get her mother out of the car. The older woman\u2019s lower body seemed to be stuck in the remains of the car\u2019s door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI reached under her and picked her up and put on the back on this rail car,\u201d McCoy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the men were assisting the women, Sloan, deputy commander for administration, was on his way to work at JBLM when he spotted the disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A veteran of three deployments \u2014 two to Iraq \u2014 Sloan instantly knew he had happened upon a mass casualty event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI stopped my car. I backed it up, and I ran because there were people who needed help,\u201d Sloan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First responders had yet to arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou could begin to see passengers exiting the rail car that was dangling off the bridge,\u201d Sloan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like McCoy and Livingston, Sloan climbed up the semi-trailer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where I first met Maj. Livingston,\u201d he said. And, seconds later, McCoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The younger woman told the men her husband and 8-month-old daughter were still trapped inside the car\u2019s bathroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Livingston moved a mass of severed cables that had connected the two cars, and McCoy made his way into the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe started banging the (bathroom) door so hard I thought he was going to break his kneecap,\u201d Livingston said of McCoy. \u201cBut that door would not budge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man said he and his baby were OK. They would wait for firefighters to free them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the men moved further up the dark and inclined car, Livingston moved aside dislodged panels and luggage racks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou saw shoes everywhere, backpacks, cellphones .\u201d Livingston said. The car was also resting cockeyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was like a jungle in there,\u201d Livingston said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The soldiers used their cellphones as flashlights. They found dazed victims with broken limbs, head wounds and other injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe got people over the seats and out the door,\u201d Sloan said. \u201cSome people were bringing their luggage. Others were very animated to get out of this situation. There was no level surface anywhere in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon there were only two people left in the train car: a man with a broken arm and his wife who had a broken ankle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll we could see was her hip and a broken leg,\u201d Sloan said. The woman was wedged under a seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man wouldn\u2019t leave his wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey weren\u2019t going to depart each other\u2019s sides,\u201d Sloan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three soldiers lifted the seat off the woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe pulled her out, inch by inch, until we could get her to sit up,\u201d Sloan said. \u201cAnd then she took a breath and said, \u2018I\u2019m going to be OK, I\u2019m going to be OK.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slowly they moved her down the steep car. She took breaks by resting on the soldiers\u2019 legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By then firefighters had entered the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFirst responders were on it, they were everywhere,\u201d McCoy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The soldiers estimated they spent 90 minutes to two hours on the scene before firefighters sent them home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe took care of the people that needed to be taken care of,\u201d Sloan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lt. Col. Scott Grogan, director of family medical residency at Madigan, was having his daily huddle with his nursing staff, residents and faculty Monday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight in the middle of that the overhead page came,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCode Triage,\u201d the announcement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs this real?\u201d Grogan and others asked each other, accustomed to frequent drills. \u201cThe next call a minute later was \u2018All available gurneys to the emergency department.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Madigan is a level two trauma center that treats both military and civilian patients. It sits seven miles from the scene of Monday\u2019s derailment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Col. Matthew Martin is chief of trauma and critical care at Madigan. On Monday morning, he was in an operating room, seconds away from opening a patient with his scalpel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe chief of anesthesia came in and said, \u2018There\u2019s been this train derailment and we\u2019re expecting 50 to 70 patients,\u2019 \u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The patient, who was having elective surgery, was woken up, and the operating room was readied for a trauma patient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The emergency room and intensive care units were also readied for a mass influx of patients, Martin said. Staff made plans on where the walking wounded would go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Martin and others at Madigan, like Dr. Vance Sohn, are veterans of overseas deployments and mass casualty events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way that we responded is just truly a reflection of the things that we\u2019ve done in combat,\u201d Sohn, director of general surgery, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only 19 patients arrived at Madigan. Others were sent to hospitals from Olympia to Tacoma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the injuries from Monday\u2019s disaster were from blunt force trauma. They included broken limbs, head wounds, abdominal injuries and cervical spine fractures, Martin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of Tuesday afternoon, all of Madigan\u2019s 12 patients who were admitted Monday were in serious or better condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was nothing short of a miracle,\u201d nurse Emily Phillips said. \u201cI was expecting way worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-895499558.jpg.jpg\")