SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, Pa. — After 50 to 60 vehicles piled up on Interstate 81 in a snow squall, first responders tell Newswatch 16 the priorities were putting out the vehicle fires and getting survivors to safety.
"The best thing, in that case, anybody who was able to get out, anybody who was able to walk, needed to get off that highway, up behind the cover of some trees, even though it was cold out. It was an extremely dangerous situation to be in," said Jeremy Smallwood, assistant fire chief for the Lavelle Volunteer Fire Company.
Victims of the crash were bused from the highway to a triage center Schuylkill County set up at a nearby Wegmans distribution center.
"It definitely wasn't a normal day. And honestly, first and foremost, our thoughts and prayers do go out to the people involved and everyone that was impacted and yesterday's tragic event," said Mark Mikita, asset protection manager at Wegmans.
Mikita said his staff could hear the sirens from the distribution center. He has EMTs on staff who heard first responders were having difficulty accessing the scene, so they went down and helped. Then, EMA officials asked if Wegmans could host a triage center for patients to be evaluated by emergency responders. They set it all up in the warehouse breakroom.
"Something we couldn't prepare for, some of the things. You knew people needed help, but they needed someone to talk to and just reach out. A lot of folks had pets which that's something we weren't prepared for. We had crayons, we think, for children. But, you know, we had a couple from New Hampshire stop here, a couple from Texas that had two dogs, and one was pretty severely wounded and trying to help them not only be comfortable themselves but get assistance for their animals," Mikita said.
Smallwood, an EMT in Ashland and a full-time minister, said that role kept him busy again.
"One of the things that I've been doing all day today is just talking to people, talking to some of the some of the volunteers or EMS providers that were there on the scene, and just kind of asking them what they saw, how they felt about it, and kind of processing, kind of getting that out so that they can that they can move on. And it doesn't become part of their traumatic memory."
Smallwood says most of the first responders Monday were volunteers, and they encountered human tragedy first hand, and that can take a toll.
"You know that there's people up ahead that need your help, but you've got other people here, and they're just so many people that needed help with that many vehicles in an accident that many patients that needed help. It was just impossible to get to everybody really quickly. So it was a very long duration incident. And to have that patience to begin to systematically go through the triage process and to encounter everybody find out what they need, get them the help that they need into a better place took a long time. That was probably the most frustrating."