An amazing story of heroism Steelworkers risked it all to save the lives of strangers following train crash by Paul V. Arnold "There are a lot of heroes in the shadows," says Birmingham Steel employee Jack Casey. That quote, more than anything, describes the concept of the "MRO Pro" feature that appears in each issue of MRO Today magazine. In nearly all the cases, those "heroes," those MRO Pros, are the men and women who quietly, through their ideas and actions, keep their manufacturing facilities up and running.  We like to tell the stories of these maintenance and production workers and give them the credit they so richly deserve.  But every so often, there is a case where the term "MRO Pro" does not go far enough.  Such people are heroes in the truest sense. MRO Today is proud to tell this story of how 30 manufacturing workers helped save more than 100 lives following the recent crash and derailment of an Amtrak train in central Illinois.  Most of the details of this story were never told in newspaper and television accounts.  MRO Today thanks the Kankakee (Ill.) Daily Journal for bringing the details to our attention. Like many of his co-workers, Bob Curwick heard the boom that rattled the Birmingham Steel plant at 9:45 p.m. on Monday, March 15, 1999. "At first I thought it was a wet charge," said Curwick, the foreman of roller operations at the facility, located in Bourbonnais, Ill. A wet charge occurs when cold water, or ice, hits hot steel, setting off a little boom. But right after the boom, Curwick and the plant's 29 other night-shift employees heard the screams. An Amtrak train had collided with a tractor-trailer and derailed in a tract of land just behind the plant's back lot.  The train's cars were scattered and mangled.  Several were on fire.  A crane operator saw the wreckage and, using his two-way radio, sent an emergency call to foremen on the plant floor. All 30 employees rushed to the disaster site. "We were the first on the scene," said steelworker Stan Kazmierski, noting that firefighters arrived a short time later. While several employees doubled back to the plant and gathered equipment (first-aid kits, flashlights, two-way radios, fire extinguishers, hacksaws and ladders), others entered the toppled and shredded train cars and began rescue efforts. Curwick entered a dining car and was directed to a young girl trapped in the wreckage.   It was feared that the girl, who has Down's Syndrome, had a broken back. Curwick comforted the terrified girl for an hour until firefighters arrived with a backboard.  He then convinced the girl to lay down on the board and be carried to safety.  While Curwick huddled with the youngster, fellow Birmingham Steel employees fought the growing fires, ripping holes in the cars' sheet metal, kicking in doors and windows, and helping men, women and children to safety. Kazmierski entered a two-level passenger car.  On the lower level, he attended to four people.  On the upper level, he tried to carry a woman down, but she refused to leave, saying her baby was somewhere in the car.  Kazmierski found the child and brought the family out. Kazmierski then went to a sleeper car that was on its side.  He and several co-workers, including Brent Halpin and Jeff Naece, forced open the car's safety doors and broke windows to create entrances for rescue workers and exits for trapped passengers. The car was dark except for the fire building at one end.  Smoke made it difficult to see and breath.  But the crew kept working. "A lot of guys I know were on the train and they were helping (passengers) up and out," said Naece.  "It was like, 'Move them over to this guy and help them over to the ladder and get them off.' " Fifteen passengers from that sleeper car were saved. "We ate a lot of smoke," said Casey, a millwright who was once a paramedic.   "There was a lot of diesel fuel, railroad ties and foam rubber from the burning sleeper car." Most of the workers returned to the plant around midnight.  Others remained at the site until 6 a.m.  Upon exchanging stories, Kazmierski estimated that each worker had saved about five people. The crash did, however, take the lives of 11 passengers. "Something has to be said about the guys from Birmingham," said Dan Abert, a Bourbonnais resident who witnessed the workers' acts of heroism.  "They were everywhere, on the train and in the train, saving lives." This article appeared in the April/May 1999 issue of MRO Today magazine.  Copyright 1999. Back to top Back to MRO Pro archives