Memorial To A Victim, Reflection After 20 Years
Ten years after the collision, the McDonogh School of Owings Mills, Maryland decided to build a 448-seat theater in memory of one of the crash's victims and alumna, 16-year-old Ceres Millicent Horn. Ceres Horn graduated from the school at age 15 and enrolled and was accepted at Princeton University at age 16 where she majored in astrophysics. Her family has never ridden a train since.
On January 4, 2007, the 20th anniversary of the crash, her family visited the theatre for the first time and attended a ceremony at the McDonogh School held in honor of their daughter.
Also at the time of the 20th anniversary, the Baltimore Sun interviewed some of the volunteers and professionals who responded or treated injured passengers after the collision. An Amtrak signal foreman who had responded from home told the reporter: "Once you got here, your stomach just turned. It was the most devastating thing I've seen in my 30 years down here," he said. "It was a horrific scene." The man added that he didn't leave the crash site for three or four days, sometimes catching some sleep while propped against the trees lining the track. "You didn't worry about pay, you didn't worry about nothing, you just tried to help these people out," he said.
Some of the "Good Samaritans" who lived close by and helped pull passengers out immediately after the collision were later invited to the White House and their efforts acknowledged by President Ronald Reagan.
The Baltimore County Fire Department's medical commander at the scene 20 years earlier told the newspaper that the Amtrak crash is still being used as a case study in effective disaster response. "The reason is how the members of the professional and volunteer fire departments and the community people got together." It was, he said, "a very sad but a very proud moment" in his career.
Read more about this topic: 1987 Maryland Train Collision
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