Temple prof injured in Amtrak crash
A Temple prof offers his account of being among the injured in the Amtrak crash.
Duy Nguyen, 39, an associate professor in Temple University's School of Social Work, was talking to his wife on the phone, his laptop open when he felt the train jolt.
He was riding in the last train car, on the left side near the back.
"The next thing I know we're sliding and falling to the right side of the train. I went clear across the other seat, the aisle and into the other side. And the lights cut out...," said Nguyen, of Teaneck, N.J.
He heard the crunch of metal on metal and saw a hazy smoke. Emergency lights came on but it was still very dark, he said.
Nobody was sure what had happened.
"There was a lot of disbelief. 'Oh my God.' People were trying to find their loved ones and their traveling companions," he said.
Some were calling 911.
Blood was gushing from his head and down his face. His back hurt and it was difficult to walk. He had no sense of the severity of his injuries.
He didn't know what had happened to his cell phone, his bag or his laptop - and at that point, he didn't care. He left them behind.
All he could think about was how to get out of the train — and quickly.
"Everybody was sort of disoriented and you're trying to figure out which way do I go," he said.
He spotted what looked like a cracked seam in the back of the train with a hole big enough for him to pass through but not dangerously jagged.
Blood was gushing from his head and down his face. His back hurt and it was difficult to walk.
As he emerged, he saw the downed power lines and wreckage around him and began to realize the magnitude of what had happened. Nguyen's photograph as he was being helped from the scene, a police officer on each side, appeared on websites.
Nguyen didn't know if he was in Pennsylvania or New Jersey.
"The police came up and said you're in Philadelphia. I said I must be close to Temple. Can you take me to Temple," Nguyen recalled.
He was transported to Temple Hospital where he received eight sutures in his head and was treated for a bruised back and abdomen.
Nguyen, whose research expertise is on the mental health of older Asian Americans, was on his way home Tuesday night from a White House conference on Asian American Pacific Islanders for Asian Heritage Month. A former New York University professor who got his PhD from Columbia and his undergraduate degrees from Washington University in St. Louis, Nguyen has worked at Temple about a year.
Nguyen talked on his wife's cell phone as he was preparing to be discharged on Wednesday afternoon. He planned to head home with his wife, still trying to comprehend the tragedy.
"It seems like it's one of these things that happens to other people," he said. "You are literally part of the news. You're involved in an event where other people perish. That's not really what we go about in our daily life thinking about. I don't fully comprehend it now. I don't know when I will get my head around it."
