"A terrible sight": After a train accident, a first responder crawls into a wagon and saves a trapped child
Created: 6/6/2022, 10:35 p.m
By: Catherine Bromberger
A good team: Martin Maurer (l.) from the Partenkirchen fire brigade is one of the first responders to arrive at Charles Bergman's wagon.
© private
After the train accident, US soldier Charles Bergman immediately helps: He evacuates, crawls into a wagon and offers consolation.
A mother calls for her trapped child.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen – The mother clutches her son tightly, he is maybe a year and a half old.
"My child, my child," she calls out again and again.
She doesn't mean that in her arms.
But the second.
It's at the back of the train.
The head is stuck between branches that smashed the window.
It cannot move, nobody could free it with bare hands.
"It was a terrible sight," says Charles Bergman.
A terrible sight.
But the trapped child cries – “good news for me”.
Because that means it's alive.
Bergman calms the child, who he hasn't been able to tell if it's a boy or a girl.
Not important at this moment.
Then he comforts the mother.
"Help is on the way," he promises.
A few minutes earlier, Bergman climbed into one of the three wagons that had derailed and overturned near Burgrain.
US Army soldier on the way to Garmisch: Suddenly mud and dirt on the road
It must have happened at 12:14 p.m., says the 51-year-old.
Because the US Army soldier is driving to Garmisch-Partenkirchen after a course at the NATO school in Oberammergau and is on the phone with a friend when mud and dirt suddenly spray onto the street.
He hangs up immediately.
The smartphone shows 12:15 p.m.
Bergman stops, sees the train and a few moments later the wounded passengers stagger towards the road.
"Oh my God." His "soldier instinct" kicked in immediately.
This instinct tells him: look for the injured, bring them to safety.
Others supported him.
A man stops the traffic, some accompany those affected who are in shock.
With other helpers, Bergman pulls people out of the water and off the train.
Then he crawls into the car.
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He finds six people there.
Two are slightly injured, another man seriously.
He's trapped too.
But he breathes.
Thank God, Bergman thinks.
This man is alive too.
And he also assures him that he will be taken out.
"Give them hope" was his goal.
Giving you hope until rescuers arrive.
Surely, he says, this only lasted minutes.
It felt like an eternity.
In moments like this, time seems to slow down.
Finally the soldier hears sirens.
He scoots back to meet and brief emergency services on the east side of the train.
Together they create a rescue lane – a fireman removes branches and bushes with a chainsaw – for the evacuation.
Train accident near Garmisch: mother of trapped child does not want to leave Zug at first
The mother does not want to leave the train at first, wants to stay with her trapped child.
"She was so desperate," Bergman said Monday in the Tagblatt interview.
But he convinces her when the fire brigade forces set to work with the appropriate equipment to free their child.
The professional rescue machinery is running, the US soldier is withdrawing.
But he stays on site until he knows that both the child and the injured man have been evacuated.
Once again he comforts the mother: her child is in the best hands.
As far as he knew, it was taken to a clinic in Munich.
Bergman prays for the injured, especially the young child.
The family man estimates that it is no more than five years old.
In the misfortune he discovers something positive: willingness to help.
In difficult situations we help each other.
"Most people do what they can."
also read
Train accident near Garmisch: rail and chassis in focus when looking for causes – DB was probably planning renovations
"It was a brutal picture": The shock of a serious train accident near Garmisch is still deep
You can find more current news from the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen at Merkur.de/Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
