Amtrak crash leaves 2 dead, 116 injured in South Carolina

Two people were killed and another 116 injured when an Amtrak train collided with a freight train early Sunday morning in Cayce, South Carolina.

The passenger train was traveling between New York and Miami, Amtrak said in a statement, when it "came in contact with a CSX freight train at around 2:35 a.m." The crash derailed the lead engine car plus several passenger cars. About 5,000 gallons of fuel spilled, requiring hazmat clean-up.

"There was a lot of violent shaking and everything just came to a stop, and I hit my head on the wall," said Derek Pettaway, who was on the Amtrak train. "When it was happening, it was quick. You just knew it was not the regular type of movement."

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Lexington County, South Carolina, officials responded at the scene, and President Trump praised them in his condolences tweet:

Victims of the crash are being treated at multiple area hospitals. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

This is a breaking news story and has been updated throughout.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.