The engineer who survived a 2018 train derailment that claimed the life of a coworker told an inquest everything happened so fast that day “all I had time to do was throw my hands up in front of my face.”

Chris Rushton, now 67, was among those called to testify during the inquest into the death of Kevin Anderson, 38, who was conducting a Hudson Bay Railway freight train that derailed after going over a washed-out section of rail in a remote area of northern Manitoba on Sept. 15, 2018, pinning Anderson and Rushton in the wreckage.

The rails and ties were in place, but were hanging over an empty space 15 metres long and almost five metres deep, according to a Transportation Safety Board report. It all collapsed under the weight of the train.

“I didn’t even have time to panic … It was just — blam,” Rushton told the inquest during his testimony last week. “We couldn’t do nothing other than scream.”

The men were both seriously injured but had no way of communicating with the outside world, because their radios weren’t working. 

They were discovered by chance about two hours later when a civilian helicopter happened to fly overhead, the province previously said in a news release.

“We kept telling each other not to go to sleep,” Rushton told the inquest, adding he could hear his coworker but they couldn’t see each other. 

“Kevin did say one time, ‘We’re going to die,’ and I kept saying, ‘No, we’re not dying. Not today.'”

While RCMP got to the scene around 7 p.m., access to the site was barred until it could be assessed by trained and equipped personnel because of concerns about fuel leaking from the wreckage. Emergency personnel didn’t get to the scene until much later.

An autopsy report said Anderson bled to death after suffering “serious but survivable injuries.” However, the medical opinion on whether he could have survived later changed, from a belief that timely medical services could have saved him, to his death being inevitable given the circumstances, a lawyer in the inquest previously said. 

‘We were able to free one leg’

Erin Geekie of Thompson Fire and Emergency Services, who testified before the inquest on Monday, was among the first responders who arrived at the scene while the men were still trapped inside the wreckage.

Geekie said trying to get the men outwas “extremely difficult,” and several factors delayed responders getting to the scene — including that their captain told them initially not to board a helicopter to get to the site because hazardous materials personnel weren’t there yet.

“At that point, we didn’t really have a clear picture of what was going on at the actual scene,” she said. “I was advised that there may have been dangerous goods on scene.”

The tires on the ATVs they initially tried to use to get near the scene also blew out on the jagged rocks near the train tracks, Geekie said. 

When responders finally arrived using a high-rail truck, they determined they would try to get Anderson out first, because the way he was positioned made them think he might have been easier to get out than Rushton.

“We were able to free one leg, but the tools were not very successful in freeing his other leg,” said Geekie, who is trained as a paramedic and firefighter.

“Mr. Anderson was alert the entire time, so once we freed one leg he attempted to stand up on his own, after we asked him not to, and he expired.”

Geekie was also asked a number of questions about a condition called crush syndrome, which she said can happen when someone is crushed or squeezed, causing the body tissues to break down and produce toxins.

She said while it’s not paramedics’ job to diagnose in the field, they assumed the condition was likely in a situation such as Anderson’s.

Geekie said responders confirmed Anderson had no pulse before moving over to extricate Rushton from the wreck and transport him away from the scene.

She said the derailment was the most complex incident she’d ever been involved in, and noted while responders have tools to stabilize a car flipped on its side so they can work safely, they didn’t have anything like that for the train, leaving her concerned it would slide or move while they were working.

Geekie testified if something similar happened in the future, the high-rail truck was likely a better way of getting to the scene than the ATVs they initially tried to use. She also said a warm bag to hold IV fluid would be helpful too, because when responders gave Rushton an IV, they had to keep the fluid in their jackets so it wouldn’t freeze because of how cold it was at the site.

‘A safer railway’

The inquest also heard last week from Jeff Basarab of Transport Canada, which previously investigated the derailment and prepared a report that made several recommendations.

Basarab said those included looking at how remote technologies could be used to send an alert when a train’s emergency brakes are used.

He said while the operating crew in the Manitoba derailment didn’t apply those brakes, it would have happened when the train line broke apart.

Basarab also testified that Hudson Bay Railway made a number of changes after the incident, including using the remote technologies recommended in Transport Canada’s report in some of their locomotives.

“Am I correct that as a result of this derailment, the lessons learned, the recommendations and the things implemented, today HBR is a safer railway because of what was learned by virtue of this tragedy?” Abram Silver, counsel for Anderson’s family, asked Basarab at the end of his testimony. 

“Unfortunately, I would like to think so. Yes,” Basarab said.

The inquest before provincial court Judge Timothy Killeen in The Pas, Man., is scheduled to continue Wednesday. 

Its purpose includes determining the circumstances surrounding Anderson’s death, and reviewing the co-ordination of a multi-agency response to a serious incident in a remote setting.