Metrolink crash: 'All of the sudden people just started flying'

Metrolink crash: ‘All of the sudden people just started flying’

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Aerial view of the Metrolink train derailment in Oxnard. The crash occurred at the Rice Avenue crossing, causing three cars to derail and injuring at least 28 people. (Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times)

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Oxnard police Officer Sarah Shobe removes tape in preparation of reopening Rice Avenue on the morning of Feb. 25, a day after the crash. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Crews continued to monitor the rail tracks after a night of repairs at the intersection of Rice Avenue and 5th Street in Oxnard. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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The Metrolink track at the intersection of Rice Avenue and 5th Street in Oxnard was operational Feb. 25. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Salvage crews work on the derailed Metrolink train cars in Oxnard on Tuesday afternoon. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

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Ventura County first responders at the scene of an overturned Metrolink train car in Oxnard Tuesday, after it collided with a vehicle on the tracks. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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An uninjured passenger from the Metrolink train derailment in Oxnard gestures to the media Tuesday, after the train he was riding in colliding with a vehicle on the tracks. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Ventura County first responders at the scene of an overturned Metrolink train car in Oxnard Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Firefighters and first responders on the scene of a Metrolink train derailment in Oxnard early Tuesday morning. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Officials examine a Metrolink train that derailed in Oxnard early Tuesday morning. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Firefighters inspect a Metrolink train car that derailed in Oxnard early Tuesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Firefighters inspect a Metrolink train car that derailed in Oxnard early Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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A Ventura County first responder at the scene of an overturned Metrolink train car in Oxnard after it colliding with a vehicle on the tracks. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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A firefighter hoses down hot spots after a Metrolink train collided with a vehicle on the tracks in Oxnard early Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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Metrolink passengers wait to be transported after their train derailed in Oxnard early Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

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A Ventura County sheriff’s deputy inspects an overturned Metrolink train car in Oxnard early Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

By Marisa Gerber

, Brittny Mejia and Joseph Serna

Feb. 24, 2015 10:34 AM PT

Tarlee Coleman, 53, woke up at 5:46 a.m. to a phone call from his older sister.

She was crying and he heard screams. He asked if something had happened at home.

He heard more screams, but couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. He asked her, again, what was wrong.

LIVE UPDATES: Oxnard Metrolink crash

She muttered: “Train wreck.”

He thought he heard wrong, but she repeated it.

“Did you tip over?” he asked.

“Yeah, tipped over,” she said though sobs.

She was seated in the train’s second level on her daily commute from Oxnard to Los Angeles, where she works for the county’s housing department. The train ramming into a truck, injuring 28 people, four of them critically.

It was dark out still.

Then, without warning, she levitated and her head whacked into a window.

“She said all of the sudden people just started flying,” he said. “Flying and screaming.”

“I just kept telling her, ‘Don’t move, don’t move,’ ” he said, not wanting her to get more seriously injured.

Coleman said he could hear another voice in the background -- someone trying to help his sister. Then the phone call cut off.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said, dropping his head and tearing up as the moment replayed in his mind.

He rushed to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard. When he arrived, his sister was awake and talking. She was shaken up and her right leg felt numb. She described how someone pulled her from an opening in the train.

Four hours later, she was still in the hospital getting a series of X-rays.

Coleman left the emergency room to smoke a cigarette.

“Man, she’s blessed,” he said. “All these people are blessed.”

He stopped and dropped his head, remembering not everyone was doing as well as his sister.

“Well, hopefully,” he said, as he walked slowly back toward the hospital, pausing for a moment to look up at a sign in capital red letters. “EMERGENCY,” it read.

“I need to go check on her again,” he said. “Wow.”

Nine people who were seriously injured in the derailment were taken to Ventura County Medical Center.

“I saw seven of the nine patients and they were all relatively calm. Many were grateful for the very coordinated process they saw going through. ... There was not a sense of panic,” said Bryan Wong, chief medical officer at the hospital.

Six of the nine patients received by the hospital were expected to remain there overnight, including three with critical injuries. The train engineer is among them, Wong said.

“We anticipate we have a variety of needs operatively,” he said, citing head injuries, broken ribs and at least fractured spine.

Wong said one passenger told him he was using his laptop at a small table on the train when he suddenly felt a jerking movement.

“It was so quick he wasn’t able to hold onto the table and he was thrown literally across the train, was his description,” Wong said.

For more breaking news, follow @marisagerber, @brittny_mejia and @josephserna.