When Washington State Patrol Trooper Will Finn started his workday on Monday, the Amtrak derailment in DuPont had already made national news.
Finn said he didn’t hesitate. The Vancouver-based trooper put in some calls, telling his colleagues he was ready to head north to the site of the wreck at any moment.
“I knew they would need all hands on deck to help with the tragedy,” he said in an interview Thursday at The Columbian.
Finn is a visible presence in the community. He’s supposed to be, as the District 5 public information officer for the state patrol. But his frequent and light-hearted tweets, and his willingness to interact with residents on social media, help the trooper stand out among his peers.
It wasn’t a desire to become the face of Monday’s tragedy that prompted Finn to offer help. It was his natural pull toward helping the community and the knowledge he gained in his years of training for such an event.
Amtrak Train 501 derailed Monday, killing three people and injuring several dozen passengers. The derailment blocked all three southbound lanes of Interstate 5.
After working in rain, wind and near-freezing temperatures, crews began to reopen the lanes Wednesday night. Still, much work remains.
It was shortly after 7:30 a.m. when the train, which had departed Seattle bound for Vancouver and Portland, derailed on a new stretch of track. Finn was told to head up to the scene shortly after he made his calls, but jammed traffic on the freeway’s northbound lanes meant it would take several hours.
Finn arrived just before 11 a.m. He pulled his vehicle onto the shoulder of the northbound lanes across from the wreckage. The scene was “surreal,” he said.
“I can think back to other incidents that happened around the country, which I saw reported from afar. It was surreal being a part of it and seeing it firsthand,” Finn said.
“The pictures and coverage doesn’t do it justice. The sheer impact to the region and seeing all the first responders’ vehicles with their lights flashing, personnel running around fulfilling their roles … and then to take a step back and think about the people affected by this personally, who were hurt, it made my thoughts and feelings run high,” he said.
Those initial thoughts of astonishment, of the people affected, fell to the wayside when Finn realized he needed to get to work.
The emergency medical response portion of the incident had concluded. Everyone who was injured had been transported from the scene. The investigation was underway.
Finn played a part in the operations, including securing the scene of the derailment, preserving evidence, requesting resources for cleanup, establishing family reunification points and releasing information to the public. The list goes on. For Finn, the work continued for two days.
The command structure of the response was similar to that of smaller incidents in Clark County, but it was on a much larger scale, Finn said. He said local and national training through FEMA over the years was integral to his success.
“I’ve dealt with fatality crashes but nothing of this scale. There’s no routine incident. But I can look back at lessons learned from other tragedies,” Finn said.
When asked what he took away from the experience, the trooper said a piece of every emergency he’s dealt with remains with him, and the Amtrak derailment was no different.
Finn said he and his fellow public information officers tend to internalize incidents as they’re repeatedly recounting them for media and colleagues.
“We always go home at night, or I do personally, to my family and feel thankful to have them. I can think back to a few situations here that will stay with me forever. We go to scenes, including PIOs, and we continue to relive and tell people about what happen repeatedly.”
