‘Are we gonna get out?’ Vivid memories of Missouri Amtrak derailment still strike survivor

Waves of emotion can hit Cheryl Benjamin and upend her day at almost any moment.

Breezing along an interstate, the blast of a horn from a distant train, or the same sound from her television, will trigger her memory and cause her to relive the 45 seconds from June 27 when her life and those of the others aboard the Amtrak Southwest Chief lay in peril.

“There’s nothing more terrifying than that,” she said.

Benjamin, a 61-year-old travel agent and cancer survivor, had boarded the train in Los Angeles, on her way home to East Lansing, Michigan, after an Alaskan cruise and a trip to Disneyland with her goddaughter.

She was one of a dozen or so passengers, seated in the last of eight cars headed to Chicago, when she felt a bump, then a jolt and heard a cry of the train horn.

Benjamin quickly glanced out the window and saw the line of rail cars in front of her topple over along the tracks in rural Missouri.

“I kept thinking, we’re going to fall over. We’re going to fall over,” Benjamin said.

As the locomotive slid forward, Benjamin grabbed hold of the passenger seat in front of her.

“We were skidding along the ground,” she said. “It was like a cartoon, glass from broken windows, the dirt and sand were blowing past your face.”

After hitting a dump truck, the train ground to a stop. Four people were killed, including the driver of the dump truck, and more than 150 people on the train were injured, including Benjamin.

She struggled to regain her composure and find a way out of the wreckage.

“Are we gonna get out? Is the train going to explode? All kinds of things were running through my head,” Benjamin said.

There was no easy way out.

A crew of Boy Scouts who were on board helped pull her to safety and onto the ground.

Benjamin spent several hours that evening in a local high school gym, where community members had brought food. Taxi vans drove Benjamin and other passengers to hotels. She ended up a few hours away in Quincy, Illinois, where she spent the night.

From there, Benjamin boarded two more trains to Chicago and finally home to Michigan.

“I didn’t even have a sense of what was going on,” she said.

The effects of that train derailment linger, physically and emotionally, Benjamin said.

She sustained a concussion and bruising to the ribs on the right side of her body. Her wrists were injured when rescue workers pulled her from the wreckage.

Physical therapy appointments helped ease her physical pain. Counseling has helped ease her emotional pain.

“The PTSD is still pretty bad but not as bad as it was, but still pretty bad,” she said.

During their sessions, her therapist encourages Benjamin to reflect on experiences before the derailment. It helps calm her when images of mangled bodies, scattered debris and wreckage invade her thoughts, she said.

“You were on vacation, I had a great time before and I want to make sure you don’t forget,” Benjamin said she recalled being told.

She still plans to travel but isn’t in a hurry to get back on a train.

“Well, it could happen again. But you know, if you’ve ever been in a car crash, you’re still driving,” Benjamin said.

For the past 25 years, Benjamin has operated her own travel agency, Time to Travel. She also spent 28 years working in human resources for the state of Michigan.

But after the train derailment, Benjamin canceled several planned group trips.

“The accident was still heavy on my mind. Oh, and I was ready to shut it down. It was like walking in a fog.”

In October, Benjamin took one of her travel groups on a tour of Nashville. It was scheduled before the derailment in Missouri and she did not want to disappoint those who had signed up and paid for the trip. The group of 25 traveled to Tennessee by bus.

Their visit included stops at the historic Black college Fisk University, a bevy of soul food restaurants and the Grand Ole Opry, where Benjamin secured tickets for her group to see Clint Black and Naomi Raine perform.

Returning to a sense of normalcy has been a struggle.

She finds refuge in her faith and takes comfort in the support of friends and her husband, John, whom she married 13 years ago.

A two-time cancer survivor, Benjamin was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2014. She has been cancer-free for the past seven years and now helps raise money as a group leader for the American Cancer Society in her hometown.

“One of my mantras is that each day is a new day with new opportunities,” she said. “I can be feeling crappy today. But I know tomorrow’s a new day.

“We never know what’s going to happen to us in this life. So how do I approach it and rise through the ashes. My spirit is resilient. And I have a lot of love coming into my life.”

This story was originally published December 11, 2022 at 5:00 AM.