That mom picked up Mason Giesler, who ended up getting checked out at a different hospital than the rest of the boys and would have been a two-hour walk to the hotel where the troops were staying. One scout mom in Columbia, Missouri - 90 minutes from the accident - saw a Facebook post and said she could drive up and help the scouts. Scouting parents in Missouri stepped in to help Troops 12 and 73 have what they would need for their impromptu stay after some of them walked away from the train without so much as a change of clothes. However, they harnessed the power of social media and the scouting community to find surrogates to help their sons. Mendon, Missouri, is over an 8-hour drive from Appleton, so jumping in the car and driving there wasn’t a feasible option for parents. RELATED: Appleton scout leader injured in the Amtrak train derailment recounts the horror and heroism of the deadly wreck In the immediate aftermath, the scouts get help - and a frenzy of media attention for their heroics “It’s kinda cool that we’re getting the attention, but we weren’t the only ones helping,” he said. Many uninjured passengers were pitching in to help their fellow travelers. Logan said they weren’t the only ones helping. She could see her son, Eli, running across the tracks, so she knew he was OK. She was looking for any morsel of information she could get.Īfter almost an hour, she saw footage of the crash. Laura Skrypczak got that text and started searching online and flipping through the channels on her television. Though their dads were on the trip, Logan and Eli said both they made calls to their moms to let them know what happened and that they were OK.Ī dad on the trip sent a text to some of the other parents, telling them there had been a train crash and that it was pretty serious. Logan Poelzer and Eli Schultz went to other train cars and helped pull people out through the emergency windows. Mason Giesler from Troop 73 helped transport injured people to a staging area and directed some to an area where they could wait for a bus to pick them up. Once they all got their own footing back, the scouts fanned out and started doing what they could to help people. Once the train came to a stop, Matt Schultz and his son quickly checked themselves for injuries before turning to help those around them. The train was on its side and people were sprawled everywhere. At that point, everything was chaos, he said. “I felt like I was in a washing machine,” he said.Įli had been sitting on the left side of the train, which eventually became the ceiling as the train tipped onto its right side. That’s when he knew something was wrong.Įli Schultz was in the aisle, picking up the items that had flown forward from the first jolt, when the train started to tip. Then there was a second bang and the train started tipping. “I thought we hit something, but it wasn’t serious,” he said. Everything jerked forward and a few items got knocked off the table in front of him. Troop 12 scout Logan Poelzer was listening to music when he heard a bang. “So we're all kind of groggy, and I was trying to take a nap actually.” “You're already on the train for, let's say, 18 hours by that point, and it was not a good night's sleep,” Eli’s dad and Troop 12 assistant scoutmaster, Matt Schultz, said. Looking back now, here's how the scouts group remembers it. And we know the Missouri Department of Transportation released a plan earlier this year citing a need to improve safety at the rail crossing. We know at least 150 people were taken to local hospitals for injuries ranging from minor to serious.

The accident left four people dead - three on the train and the truck driver. Normalcy would have to wait a little while.Įli was one of 22 Boy Scouts and leaders from Appleton Troops 12 and 73 who - on their way home from a once-in-a-lifetime scouting trip to New Mexico - were on the Amtrak train that derailed in late June in Missouri after hitting a dump truck.

He made it about halfway through, but then found it too difficult to lift weights, so he called and asked to be picked up. But she sent him off to practice with a reminder that he could always call her if he needed to leave early. Laura had her concerns, especially since he was dealing with some shoulder and upper back pain from the derailment. His mom, Laura, said she and her husband, Dan, had gone through trauma counseling with Eli after the accident and were encouraged to let Eli go back to doing the things he’d usually do.Ī sense of normalcy would be good for him.

Just days after he was on an Amtrak train that derailed in Missouri, Eli Skrypczak wanted to go to football practice.

Hard to look away from a train wreck