WHEN TRAIN SLAMS INTO PARADE, MASTER SERGEANT ANSWERS CALL

  • Published
  • By -- Airman 1st Class Erica Rodriguez
  • 17th Training Wing Public Affairs
When a freight train slammed into a parade float in Midland, Texas, Nov. 15, killing four people and injuring 17 others, a heroic Airman here used his Self-Aid and Buddy Care training to help ensure the death toll didn't rise even further.

Master Sgt. Christopher Doggett, a military training leader at Goodfellow, was participating in a Hunt for Heroes parade, honoring wounded veterans. Doggett had been wounded by enemy forces while deployed to Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia, in support of Operation Southern Watch. His combat injuries earned him a Purple Heart and an invitation to Midland's hunting trip and parade. Doggett, along with nearly two dozen other veterans and their spouses, would ride through the town on trailer floats pulled by trucks, while crowds of people cheered for them.

The parade route crossed railroad tracks.

"My wife and I were on the first trailer in the parade; and as we crossed the train tracks, we saw a train moving toward us," Doggett said. "We began yelling at the second trailer (which was still on the tracks)."

He jumped off the first trailer and started running toward the second.

"I was praying it was completely clear of the track; it, unfortunately, wasn't," he said.

As the train, traveling at nearly 60 mph, impacted the float, Doggett automatically went into battle mode.

"My first thoughts were to clear out the wives to keep them from seeing things they weren't prepared to see," he said. "I'm not sure anyone can be prepared for such a sight though."

One of the first people he saw was a woman whose leg had been severed. Two men were already providing CPR.

"I asked a woman behind me for her belt to apply a tourniquet to stop the bleeding," Doggett said. "We all counted chest compressions, and after a few cycles she began to breathe."

The train had stopped moving, but it took extra time for paramedics to respond because of the blocked roads. The uninjured veterans from each float used their military training to help every injured person.

"As I stood there and looked at the destruction that had happened, you could see that each member was being attended to by at least one of the military members on the floats," Doggett said. "Everyone did exactly as they were supposed to do. Without the training we receive and the scenarios we go through, more lives would have been lost."

Tragically, four veterans who had pushed their wives off the float just in time to save them from being a casualty paid with their own lives.

"They to me are the heroes," Doggett said. "They pushed their wives to safety before impact, again spilling their blood for U.S. citizens."