Philly cop: Amtrak wreck was "sea of razor blades"
PHILADELPHIA -- Amtrak announced Sunday that train service will resume Monday on the Northeast Corridor, less than a week after the derailment in Philadelphia which killed eight people and injured more than 200 others.
The first train is scheduled to leave Philadelphia for New York City just before 6 o'clock in the morning.
A memorial service was held Sunday evening for the victims, with local, federal and state officials among those gathering near the site of the crash to remember the lives lost.
At the same time, the investigation into what caused the derailment continues, including possible projectile damage to the locomotive's windshield.
On "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told Bob Schieffer investigators increasingly believe the train was not shot at.
"I'd like to downplay that part. I've now seen the fracture pattern," Sumwalt said. "It looks like something about the size of a grapefruit, if you will. And it did not even penetrate the entire windshield."
Lenny Knobbs, a first-time Amtrak traveler, suffered a fractured back, knee and ribs. After the crash, he was pinned in the train's third car.
"It was chaos. There's no other word for it," Knobbs told CBS News. "The first thing I thought about was just surviving. I have a five-year-old son and a beautiful wife that I wanted to survive for."
Philadelphia police officers Tim Stephan and Richard Hough climbed into the darkness and danger of Train 188's mangled first car.
"Going into that car was like diving into barbed wire or going into, like, a sea of razor blades," Hough said. "Everybody that went in there got injured. It was extremely dangerous."
Stephan was one of the officers seen in a picture that went viral, showing rescuers carrying an injured passenger off the train.
"Something out of a movie scene," Stephan described. "It's very difficult to walk, the way that the car was angled. It was probably, like, a 45-degree angle. It was still rocking back and forth."
When asked what he wanted to say to the firefighters and police that pulled him out of the wreckage, Knobbs simply replied, "Thank you. You saved my life."
Stephan told us he just considered himself a Philadelphia police officer who was doing his job.