A sharp turn, then muffled screams

After the collision, he said, she had called him. She told him that she was bleeding from the head, that she "hurt all over."

"That was about it," he said. "The phone went dead."

Police told him he couldn't get through because it was too dangerous.

"I understand," he said. "But I just have to get to her."

Jeff Buckley, 36, had been at work at a political consulting firm in Burbank when he received a call from his mother. "Your dad's train just crashed," she told him. By 8:15 p.m., he had called information hotlines and every hospital he could think of. He had learned nothing. His father, he said, was not in good health.

"He would have called by now," he said. "It doesn't look good."

Inside the police tape, back at the impact zone, Greg Tevis, 59, stood alone, holding a briefcase with clasped hands. An attorney who was commuting from his downtown office to his home in Thousand Oaks, Tevis was an island in the midst of the chaos -- unscathed, somehow, which seemed to shock him as much as anything else. His Nordstrom wool suit looked crisp; his red-striped tie was still knotted.

Tevis had helped more than 15 people out of the wreckage; now there was nothing left to do.

Immediately after the wreck, he had made his way to the back of his car to search for a man who always sat in the same place, a friendly guy who used a cane. He couldn't find him.

Tevis never knew the man's name. That's how it was for all of them, he said -- "an unspoken bond." Friday night, during the rescue, was the first time many of them had ever spoken or touched.

"I ride this train every day. I know some of these folks. Some of them don't look too good," he said.

"It's never going to be the same again."

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david.pierson@latimes.com

scott.glover@latimes.com

scott.gold@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Fatal train crashes

Dec. 19, 1989: Three people die when an Amtrak passenger train crashes into a big-rig truck near Stockton.

Nov. 7, 1990: Four railway crew members are killed when two trains collide in Corona.

Dec. 18, 1992: Three people are killed when an Amtrak train plows into a van in Moorpark.

Nov. 16 1993: Two people are killed when a Metro Rail Blue Line train hits a car in Willowbrook.

April 23, 2002: Three people are killed and more than 260 are injured when a Metrolink train and a freight train crash head-on in Placentia.